Why this chapter matters for UPSC: Cities run on the work of street vendors, rickshaw pullers, daily-wage labourers, factory hands, shopkeepers and office staff, most of whom have no job security. The difference between casual and permanent work that NCERT draws is the core of GS3 questions on informal employment, labour reforms and the gig economy, and of GS1 questions on urbanisation and migration. In the rationalised 2023-24 edition this is Chapter 8, "Urban Livelihoods", with the same content.

Contemporary hook: On 21 November 2025 the four Labour Codes came into force, replacing 29 central labour laws. The Code on Social Security, 2020 defines "gig work", "platform work" and "aggregators" for the first time and asks aggregators to pay towards a social security fund for gig and platform workers (PIB, 21-Nov-2025). Section 9b covers the change.

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

NCERT walks through a big Indian city (it notes there are more than five thousand towns and twenty-seven big cities with over a million people each) and meets the people who work in it:

  • On the street: vegetable and flower sellers, a newspaper vendor, a cobbler, a roadside barber, a woman pushing a cart of plastic goods, and Bachchu Manjhi, a cycle-rickshaw puller from Bihar who earns Rs 200-300 a day, spends Rs 100-150 on food and rent, and sends the rest to his family in the village.
  • In the market: Harpreet and Vandana, who run a garment showroom and buy stock from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Tirupur and abroad.
  • In the factory-workshop area: daily-wage labourers waiting at the labour chowk, and Nirmala, a tailor in an export garment unit, paid Rs 280 for eight hours and Rs 100 extra for working late, with no work for three or four months a year.
  • In the office area: Sudha, a marketing manager with a regular salary, holidays, medical cover and savings for old age.

The chapter's lesson: in the city, some people work on their own (vendors, shopkeepers) and others are employed; among the employed, casual workers like Nirmala are hired when needed and let go when orders dry up, while permanent workers like Sudha have security and benefits. Most urban workers are on the insecure side of that line.

PART 1 — Quick Reference

Four Kinds of Urban Work (NCERT)

PersonPlace of workWorks on own or employedSecurityBenefits
Bachchu ManjhiStreet (cycle rickshaw)OwnNone: no earning on days he is illNone
Harpreet and VandanaMarket (showroom)Own; employ helpers and supervisorsTheir own business (shop licensed by the municipal corporation)—
NirmalaExport garment factoryEmployed, casualNone: let go when work ends; complaining can cost the jobNone
SudhaCompany officeEmployed, permanentJob expected to continueSavings for old age, holidays, medical cover and paid medical leave

Key Facts (NCERT)

FactNCERT
Street workers in Ahmedabad12% of all the city's workers (survey)
Street vendors in urban India"Almost one crore"
Labour chowkDaily-wage workers waiting to be hired as helpers to masons, diggers, loaders
Nirmala's payRs 280 for eight hours; Rs 100 extra for late work; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the December-April season
Night shelterRs 6 a night, run by the Municipal Corporation (from a report by Aman Sethi quoted by NCERT)

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

Working on the Street

Explainer

Street workers sell things, repair them or provide a service. They work on their own, plan their own purchases, and set up temporary shops: boards on boxes, a canvas sheet on poles, a cart or a plastic sheet on the pavement. Their families often prepare the goods at home. They have no security: the police can ask them to dismantle their stalls at any time, and some parts of the city are closed to hawkers.

NCERT records a change in thinking: street vending, "till recently looked upon only as an obstruction to traffic", came to be recognised "as a general benefit and as a right of people to earn their livelihood". It notes proposals for hawking zones, free movement for mobile vendors, and hawkers' places on the committees that decide their affairs. Those ideas became law in 2014 (see 9a).

Bachchu Manjhi came to the city because masonry work in his village was irregular. He bought an old rickshaw in instalments, works until 8.30 p.m., earns Rs 10-30 a trip, and visits his family two or three times a year. If he falls ill, he earns nothing.

The Market and the Factory

Explainer

Businesspersons. Harpreet and Vandana switched from stitching to ready-made garments as tastes changed; they advertise in newspapers, cinemas, TV and radio, and their business grew as apartments came up nearby. Permanent shops in the market are licensed by the municipal corporation, which also fixes the weekly closing day.

The labour chowk. In the factory area, workers sit at a crossing waiting to be picked up for a day's work: helping masons, digging, loading trucks, laying pipelines and cables. There are thousands of such casual workers in a city.

Nirmala's factory makes summer clothes for the USA, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. From December to April she works from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. or later, six days a week, and sometimes Sundays. By June the work is over and the factory cuts staff. Casual workers are employed "as and when the employer needs them"; complaining about pay or conditions can mean being asked to leave; there is no protection against ill-treatment. In cloth mills, two workers share a machine in 12-hour shifts.

Call centres are a newer form of city work: India attracts them because companies "can get people who can speak English and will work for lower wages" (NCERT).

Permanent and Regular Work

Key Term

Permanent worker (NCERT): attends the same office or factory regularly, has clearly defined work, gets a regular salary, and is not asked to leave when there is less work. Sudha supervises 50 salespersons across six regions of the city and gets:

  • savings for old age: part of her salary goes into a fund with the government, which she receives with interest when she retires;
  • holidays: Sundays, national holidays and annual leave;
  • medical facilities: her company pays medical expenses up to a limit, and her pay is not cut for medical leave.

Casual worker: employed only when needed, no job security, no benefits. NCERT asks whether domestic workers are also casual workers.

Why it matters: the same city depends on both groups, but only one of them carries the cost of illness, old age and a lean season by itself. Laws such as the Labour Codes try to extend some of Sudha's protections to Nirmala and Bachchu Manjhi.

[Additional] 9a. Street Vendors: the 2014 Act and PM SVANidhi

Key Term

Key Terms: Street Vending

TermMeaning
Street Vendors ActThe Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 (Act 7 of 2014)
Certificate of vendingIssued to vendors identified in a survey (held at least once every five years); no vendor may be evicted or relocated until the survey is complete and certificates are issued to all (s.3(3))
Town Vending CommitteeDecides vending matters in each town; not less than 40% of its members are street vendors elected by vendors, one-third of them women
PM SVANidhiA collateral-free working-capital loan scheme for street vendors, run by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
UPSC Connect

[Additional] PM SVANidhi (GS3: Inclusive Growth; GS2: Welfare Schemes)

FeatureDetail
LoansRs 15,000, then Rs 25,000, then Rs 50,000 after repayment of each (the first two were Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 before the scheme was restructured in 2025)
Lending periodExtended to 31 March 2030; outlay Rs 7,332 crore (AIR News, on the Cabinet decision of 2025)
ExtrasA UPI-linked RuPay credit card after the second loan is repaid; cover widened to census towns and peri-urban areas
ReachMore than 75.5 lakh beneficiaries have taken over 1.12 crore loans worth more than Rs 17,800 crore (PIB, 30-May-2026)

The scheme answers one of NCERT's problems directly: vendors' dependence on moneylenders for daily working capital.

[Additional] 9b. Gig Workers and the Labour Codes

Key Term

Key Terms: New Forms of Urban Work

TermMeaning
Gig and platform workersPeople who take work task by task, often through an app (delivery, ride-hailing); defined in law for the first time by the Code on Social Security, 2020
AggregatorThe platform company; must contribute 1-2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of what it pays gig and platform workers, towards their social security (PIB, 21-Nov-2025)
e-ShramThe national database of unorganised workers, launched in 2021; each registered worker gets a 12-digit Universal Account Number (UAN)
Four Labour CodesThe Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Code on Social Security, 2020; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020
UPSC Connect

[Additional] The Numbers and the Laws (GS3: Employment; GS2: Labour Welfare)

IndicatorFigureSource
Gig workers77 lakh in 2020-21; projected 2.35 crore by 2029-30NITI Aayog, India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy, June 2022
e-Shram registrations31.89 crore (as on 18 August 2026), including about 11.5 lakh platform workersPIB, 25-Aug-2026
Labour CodesIn force from 21 November 2025, rationalising 29 central labour laws; draft Central Rules pre-published for comments on 30 December 2025PIB, 21-Nov-2025; Ministry of Labour Annual Report 2025-26
State gig-worker lawsAs of August 2025, Rajasthan (2023) and Bihar (2025) had passed laws, and Karnataka had a Bill before its legislaturePRS Legislative Research, 13-Aug-2025

Construction workers. In National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour v. Union of India (19 March 2018), the Supreme Court opened its judgment: "Symbolic justice – there is nothing more to offer to several millions of construction workers in the unorganized sector – not social justice, not economic justice." It had ordered in 2010 that every State set up a construction workers' Welfare Board within three months, and in 2012 ordered an audit of those Boards, yet, the Court found, "huge amounts are available with the Welfare Boards, but have not been utilized" for the workers. The labour chowk workers NCERT describes are these workers.

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

NCERT's distinction between self-employed, casual and permanent workers is the vocabulary for India's employment debates. Most urban workers are informal: they work on their own or on casual terms, without the old-age savings, holidays and medical cover that Sudha has. Three policy responses follow from the chapter. Recognition and space for vendors (the 2014 Act's survey, certificates and Town Vending Committees). Credit for the self-employed (PM SVANidhi). Social security for informal and platform workers (e-Shram and the Code on Social Security). Bachchu Manjhi's story also links this chapter to migration (GS1): he works in the city because village work is irregular, and his family survives on what he sends home.

Exam Strategy

Prelims traps:

  • NCERT: Ahmedabad street workers 12% of the city's workforce; almost one crore street vendors.
  • Street Vendors Act 2014: certificate of vending (not a licence); no eviction until the survey is complete (s.3(3)); Town Vending Committee with at least 40% vendor members, one-third of them women.
  • PM SVANidhi: Rs 15,000 / 25,000 / 50,000; lending to 31 March 2030.
  • Labour Codes in force 21 November 2025, replacing 29 laws; gig and platform work first defined in the Code on Social Security, 2020.
  • e-Shram issues a Universal Account Number, not an "identification number".
  • NITI Aayog (2022): 77 lakh gig workers was the 2020-21 estimate; 2.35 crore is the 2029-30 projection.

Mains frameworks:

  • On informal work: NCERT's four workers → what security means (benefits, tenure, voice) → why informality persists (seasonal orders, cost-cutting) → responses (Labour Codes, e-Shram, SVANidhi).
  • On gig work: flexibility vs security → definition and aggregator contribution under the Code on Social Security → State laws → enforcement questions.

Practice Questions

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Real UPSC questions on this chapter are listed in the PYQ box above.

Prelims:

  1. In NCERT's survey of Ahmedabad, people working on the street formed what share of the city's workers?
    (a) 5%
    (b) 12%
    (c) 25%
    (d) 40%

  2. Under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, street vendors make up at least what share of a Town Vending Committee's members?
    (a) 25%
    (b) 33%
    (c) 40%
    (d) 50%

  3. The four Labour Codes, made effective from 21 November 2025, rationalised how many existing labour laws?
    (a) 19
    (b) 29
    (c) 39
    (d) 44

  4. Consider the following about e-Shram:

    1. Each registered worker receives a 12-digit Universal Account Number.
    2. Platform workers can register on it.
      Which is/are correct?
      (a) 1 only
      (b) 2 only
      (c) Both 1 and 2
      (d) Neither 1 nor 2

Mains:

  1. "In the city, the line that matters is between casual and permanent work." Discuss with reference to NCERT's examples and the Labour Codes. (GS3, 10 marks)

  2. How far do the Street Vendors Act, 2014 and PM SVANidhi address the problems of urban street vendors? (GS2, 15 marks)

📦 Revision Capsule

Revision Capsule

Hard Facts

  • Bachchu Manjhi (rickshaw, own work), Harpreet and Vandana (showroom), Nirmala (casual, export garments), Sudha (permanent, office)
  • Ahmedabad street workers 12%; almost one crore street vendors (NCERT)
  • Street Vendors Act 2014: survey, certificate of vending, TVC with ≥40% vendors
  • PM SVANidhi: Rs 15k/25k/50k; to 31-Mar-2030; 75.5 lakh beneficiaries (May-2026)
  • Labour Codes: in force 21-Nov-2025; 29 laws; gig work defined in the Code on Social Security
  • e-Shram: 31.89 crore (18-Aug-2026); NITI: 77 lakh gig workers (2020-21)

Core Concepts

  • Self-employed vs employed; casual vs permanent
  • Security of work and benefits, not just income, separate urban workers
  • Street vending moved from "obstruction" to a right to livelihood

Confused Pairs

  • Casual (hired when needed) vs permanent (regular, with benefits)
  • Certificate of vending (2014 Act) vs trade licence (permanent shops)
  • Universal Account Number (e-Shram) vs Aadhaar (identity)

PYQ Pattern

  • Mains has asked about the gig economy and women, informalisation of employment, and the Labour Codes (see the PYQ box).

Sources

Sources