The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Pondy Bazaar vendors yet to vacate despite court notice

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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Pondy Bazaar vendors yet to vacate despite court notice

R. Sujatha

Most of them have put up semi-permanent structures

Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

PACK off: Some shop-owners vacating their stalls at Pondy Bazaar Market on Friday. — .

CHENNAI: They were served court notice a fortnight ago and some of them knew that it was coming but none moved out until the last minute. For nearly a decade they have known that the market will be demolished to make way for a bigger building.

The vegetable shopkeepers in the Pondy Bazaar market would pour out their woes to anyone who would hear them. But for those who lend an ear do not find them too convincing. The shopkeepers have been paying a measly sum as rent to the Chennai Corporation.

Most of them have put up semi-permanent structures, which they say were put up after three instances of fire in 2006. “We have spent so much money after the fires,” they say. There are about 100 shops in the market, some of them occupying space of about 10ft x 10ft.

They complain no effort was made to improve the market since it was first occupied in 1929. A year later, it was extended up to Thyagaraya Road, says V. Rajarajeswari, whose father was among the first to set up shop.

“Earlier we used to sell vegetables and banana leaves but later, we stopped investing in banana leaves and went in for paper plates. These items sell well,” she says. Hers is the largest shop in the market and her brother is the president of the Pondy Bazaar Vyabarigal Munnetra Sangam.

Mohan, who had a shop in the market, resorted to hawking of vegetables on streets some years ago because he knew that the market would be razed down. Ratna Venugopal used to hawk vegetables with her father as a 10-year-old. She took over after her father’s death and over 10 years ago, sold her jewels to set up a grocery shop for two of her sons nearby. None of these people had packed their wares and continued to do business even on Friday afternoon.

Some of the smaller shop-owners were dismantling the roofs and iron poles and taking them out to Lakshmikanthan Street, behind the market, where 40 shops have been allotted 4ft x 4ft space.

The street is already in a desperate condition with three roadside eateries and a perennially overflowing garbage bin.

Long-time residents in the nearby streets say the roadside vendors are relatives of those who run shops in the market.

“I have been living here for 40 years. The encroachers around the market are relatives of the original shop-owners. I would like to see all the shops accommodated in a building. It would mean a free flow of traffic,” says S. Jagadeeswari, a homemaker.

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