Street Newspaper Vending as a Livelihood Strategy in Kathmandu Metropolitan City (A Comparative Study of Mobile and Fixed Location Newspaper Vendors)

Abstract

To cope with the ever increasing financial pressures more and more people are being pushed into the visible and invisible labour market i.e. city. A large number of vendors survive in the street of Kathmandu Metropolitan City running street business, shouting aloud and advertising their goods, uttering like Ghadi-Ghadi, Moja-moja, pants-pants, Kantipur-kantipur, Sandhayakalin and so on. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, new constitution guaranteed press freedom. It accelerated the news publication business that attracted many newspaper vendors in Kathmandu Metropolitan City. The number of the newspaper vendor is increasing since Maoist rebel and insurgency that was started from 1996 AD.

The objectives of the research are to examine socio-economic characteristics, vulnerability context and comparison between the fixed location and mobile news paper vendors of KMC within and around Ringroad. It is based on DFID'S Sustainable Livelihood Framework and empirical studies of different researchers. DFID'S Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) is an intricate pattern of relation among the major components like livelihood assets, vulnerability context transforming structures and livelihood outcomes. This research moves around the theoretical background of SLF and livelihood strategy of newspaper vendors. Methodology includes the exploration of Primary data with sample size of 28.2 percentage and secondary data. Household questionnaire survey, field observation, interview, focus group discussion and case study are the major tools of data collection. Distinction has been made between fixed location and mobile newspaper vendors in many respects like, family size, ethnicity, literacy, landholding, income, saving facilities. Analyzing the fact, fixed newspaper vendors seem to be better than mobile. But in many other respects such as their problems and ways of life they look alike. Hence, vulnerabilities, shocks, assets and livelihood outcomes are of similar nature for both types of vendors. The issue for newspaper vendor is getting greater significance in the urban area. Considering its contribution to make access to mass communication, the major cities should manage and facilitate the newspaper vendors for solving the problems of poor communication facility, unemployment and urban poverty.