Arbind Singh

Founder

Founder of NIDAN · Founder of National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI)

Arbind Singh is the founder of NIDAN [1] and National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI)[2], Indian non-profits working on livelihood and human rights from Patna.

Arbind Singh is an Indian social entrepreneur who founded NIDAN, a Patna-based organisation working with people in the informal economy, and who is national coordinator of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI).

He is associated with the campaign that led to India's Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, which gives legal protection to street traders against arbitrary eviction.

Early life and education

Singh grew up in Katihar in Bihar, a district with a large population of first-generation migrant workers, where he witnessed routine evictions of vendors. He studied sociology at the University of Delhi, taking both a bachelor's and a master's degree, and returned to Bihar in the early 1990s.

Career

On returning to Bihar, Singh founded NIDAN to work with poor households in the informal economy, using community-based and participatory approaches. He has spent some twenty-five years organising informal workers across India and building collaborative development models.

In 1998 NIDAN coordinated the formation of the National Association of Street Vendors of India, a federation of vendor organisations. Singh is NASVI's national coordinator, and campaigned for national legislation protecting street vendors. He is also co-chairperson of Self Workers Global, an international federation of street vendors based in Madrid.

Recognition

Singh was elected an Ashoka Fellow and an Eisenhower Fellow in 2007, and received the Innovation Forum Award from the Government of Bihar the same year. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship named him Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008 at the World Economic Forum, and he received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2012.[3][4][5]

NIDAN

NIDAN is a Patna-founded nonprofit that organises informal-sector workers — including street vendors, waste pickers, domestic workers and agricultural labourers — into professional groups to build social capital and market access. It reports working with around 400,000 informal workers and helped found NASVI, a national street-vendor alliance spanning 20 states.

NIDAN reports the following, on its own site:

29,500+ people empowered directly by Nidan in FY 2024-25

National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI)

NASVI is a Delhi-based network advocating for the rights, legal protection and welfare of India's street vendors, working on policy advocacy and capacity building to support their livelihoods and inclusion in urban economies.

National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) reports the following, on its own site:

To date, a total of 11 National Street Food Festivals having been organized, it is a unique fest where street food vendors from different regions assemble with their signature dishes. It brings more than 120 street food stalls from 28 states and union territories of India.