It is commonplace in urban slums to find women squatting with small stoves, cooking dosas and idlis on the road and street margins. By a conservative estimate, there are well over 5000 such small eating establishments in Vijayawada. Such establishments exist on street and road margins, and require only the minimum investment of a gas stove and cooking utensils. Being on the road margins, there is no place for eating and the buyers are expected to take home the food and eat. This makes it one of the largest single economic activities in the City. However, this entire livelihood system is in the unorganised sector.
On an average, a street margin vendor earns Rs 150-200 every day, for 3-4 hours of work. After the breakfast, by about 10.00 AM, these women pack off and get to their regular work. This activity therefore becomes a very lucrative alternate source of income for the family.
Why do urban slum households patronize such eateries and not cook breakfast at home? The opportunity cost of cooking at home is much higher than the opportunity cost of buying from such eating establishments. Therefore a considerable proportion of slum dwellers do not cook any breakfast at home and rely on such streetside eateries. There are several reasons why the opportunity cost associated with cooking at homes is very high.
Typically houses in urban slums are very small and do not have full fledged kitchens. Most often there is a single room which has a makeshift kitchen in one corner. Most slum dwellers have to get up early and go for work, and therefore have limited time available for cooking the morning breakfast. Further, South Indian breakfasts are inherently difficult in preparation and takes inordinately long preparation time. Early morning hours are valuable for slum residents for a number of reasons. Apart from their personal tasks, the women have to catch and store water (which is typically released for a couple of hours in the morning), wash vessels and clothes, get children ready for school, and also prepare lunch for the entire family (typically both husband and wife work during the daytime).
Further, a majority of slum households have atleast one tenant. The houseowner rents out a portion, generally a room, to supplement his income. (They get around Rs 500-1000 every month from this). The tenants generally do not have the space for establishing a kitchen and invariably rely on these eateries for their breakfast. These tenants are a substantial customer base for these food vendors.
Therefore, for an urban slum dweller, the opportunity cost of spending valuable morning time in preparing breakfast is huge. The costs include not being able to either catch water or clean their clothes and vessels or the family having to go without lunch. Faced with such steep costs, the slum dweller decides to make the choice of buying breakfast from street side eateries.
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