Class 6 Civics Chapter 8 Notes - Urban Livelihoods

Market: Markets in the cities are crowded during the festivals. There are different shops selling sweets, toys, clothes, footwear, utensils, electronic goods, etc.
Business Persons: In cities, there are people who own shoes in various markets. Harpreet, a businesswoman, opened readymade showrooms. She buys the materials from different cities of India like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, etc. and some items even from foreign countries.
Showrooms: Businesspersons are not employed by anyone but they employ a number of workers as supervisors and helpers. They get a licence from the Municipal Corporations to open showrooms.
Shops in Market Place: Medical clinics are also set up in the market place. The dental clinic helps people to solve tooth problems. Next to the dental clinic is a cloth showroom with three floors.
Factory area: A factory area consists of small workshops. In one of the factories, people work on sewing machines and stitch clothes. In another section, the stitched clothes are stacked. Many women work as tailors in the export garment unit.
Factory Workshop Area: Some groups of people stand in a place called “labour chowk”. They are the daily wage labourers who work as helpers to masons. They also work at construction sites and lift loads or unload trucks in the market.
Salespersons: Sales-persons work is to get orders from shopkeepers and collect payments from them. Each sales-person is responsible for a particular region.
Marketing Manager: A Marketing Manager’s task is to manage the marketing resources of a product or business. He can be an in-charge of a single product or brand or can be a General Manager responsible for a broad array of products and services.

• Urban life is different from rural life.
• People of urban areas are engaged in different activities. Some are rickshaw pullers, some are vendors, some are business persons, some are shopkeepers, etc.
• These people work on their own. They are not employed by anyone.
• There are almost one crore street vendors in the country working in urban areas.
• In the urban market one can find a variety of shops—shops selling sweets, toys, clothes, footwear, utensils, etc. There are garment showrooms too.
• There are several business persons in the market who manage their own shops or business. They are not employed by anyone. But they do employ a number of other workers as supervisors and helpers.
• The urban market has small offices and shops that provide services, such as banks, courier services and others.

A number of daily wage labourers can be found in the city. They work as helpers to mansons.
Several urban people are engaged in factories, such as garment factories. In garment factories most workers are usually employed on as casual basis. They are required to come as and when the employer needs them. Jobs on a casual basis are not permanent. There is no job security. Workers are expected to work very long hours. They do not get any facility.

• There are many workers in the city who work in offices, factories and government departments where they are employed as regular and permanent workers.
• Permanent and regular workers avail several benefits such as saving for old age, holidays, medical facilities etc.
• In big cities, working in call centres has become a new form of employment.
• Call centres are generally set up as large rooms with work stations that include a computer, a telephone set and supervisor’s stations.
• India has become a major centre not only for Indian companies but also foreign companies.

Vendor: One who sells things of daily use by going door to door.
Urban areas: Towns and cities.
Business person: One who earns his livelihood by engaging himself in some business.
Employer: One who gives the job to someone.
Casual worker: One who is engaged in temporary work.
Labour chowk: A place where daily wage labourers gather together with their tools and wait for people to come and hire them for work.
Call centre: It gives a new form of employment to the people of big cities. It is a centralised office that deals with problems and questions that consumers/customers have regarding goods purchased and services like banking, ticket booking, etc.
Hawker: One who sells things by going from place to place asking people to buy them.