Traders of K.R. Market were at the receiving end of Mayor B.S. Sathyanarayana’s ire on Monday. The incident occurred when a few shopkeepers allegedly misbehaved with students of Jyoti Institute of Technology who were participating in the market clean-up drive along with BBMP officials.
It is alleged that some traders dumped garbage in front of the students and asked them to clean it. The BBMP officials rushed to the students’ rescue. Irked with their behaviour, it is said that Mr. Sathyanarayana lambasted the traders for not keeping the market clean and instead expecting the students to pick up after them. “Will you behave in the same manner if your children were cleaning the market?” the Mayor is said to have asked the traders.
The BBMP has been taking up the market clean-up drive for the past five weeks. The Mayor was reportedly upset that the traders were continuing to dump waste indiscriminately. He threatened to shutdown the market for a week.
Later, he said that the shops of traders who were not paying rent to the BBMP diligently would be locked. On October 23, it is said that the drive would be taken up by the market’s traders themselves. The BBMP’s 67 women councillors will participate in the drive on October 28. A press release said that actor and Minister for Housing Ambareesh and tele-serial actors would be roped in to create awareness about proper solid waste management among citizens.
