The Coimbatore Corporation will in the next 10 days float tenders to commence work on a new vegetable market, Mayor S.M. Velusamy has said.
The Corporation will establish the market, meant only for wholesale traders, at the place where the Kavundampalayam dump yard existed.
Mr. Velusamy told reporters here on Tuesday that the Commissioner in-charge S. Sivarasu, City Engineer G. Karunagaran, Executive Engineers K. Sugumar and A. Lakshmanan and he were there to inspect the site and discuss the plan.
The Corporation would ask the contractor to establish the market with 170 shops on the southern side of the plot.
The arrangement would be in such a way that there would be sufficient space for parking, both heavy vehicles and light vehicles, including two-wheelers.
Mr. Sivarasu said that the Corporation would establish the 170 shops in such a way that each shop had 400 sq ft and the total area was 70,000 sq ft. In short, the civic body would establish the market on over six acres at Rs. 12 crore.
He said that the original plan was to have the market on the northern side of the plot. But after considering various aspects, keeping in mind the expansion plans and Mayor’s suggestion, the Corporation had planned to shift the market to the southern side. The area the Corporation had proposed for the market was more than twice the existing wholesale market area, which was 3.40 acres. The market had 112 shops.
Mr. Velusamy asked the officials to ensure that the market complex had more than one entrance and exit and separate ones for heavy vehicles so as to have smooth entry and exit of vehicles.
Once the Corporation completed the market, it would ask the traders in the wholesale market to shift their shops so that the space was available for construction of shops for retail vegetable vendors.
He said that the civic body would construct shops to accommodate the 300 or more retailers at the market, which was on the Mettupalayam Road near the Saibaba Colony Police Station. Mr. Sivarasu said that the wholesale market at Kavundampalayam would not have concrete roof, given the soil strength, weakened by layers of garbage.
The new retail market, however, would have concrete roof.
Once the Corporation completed the wholesale market, traffic congestion on the busy Mettupalayam Road would comedown to a great extent. And it would further improve once the retail market was also in place.
