For quite a few days now the Coimbatore Corporation has been trying to find alternative locations to house traders who were at the T.K. Market, closed since the COVID-19 lockdown was enforced.
Though it provided two alternative locations – first the Gandhipuram Town Bus Stand and the Gandhipuram Central Bus Stand – to help the traders sell vegetables and fruits and consumers get what they want while ensuring that both maintained physical distance norms, the developments have not been good for both the civic body and the traders.
Adding to the confusion was a Madras High Court order asking the Corporation to evict the traders who had encroached the Then Vadal Veethi, the lane that led to the market from both Raja Street and Big Bazaar Street.
Sources familiar with the development say the Corporation accommodating 80 traders at the makeshift market at the Town Bus Stand and 120-plus traders at the makeshift market at Central Bus Stand was not enough because there were 422 traders who wanted allotment.
And, the 422 traders fell under three categories – the first category (popularly stall shops) that paid rent to the directly to the Corporation and then the second (floor shops with roof) and third categories (floor shops without roof) that paid toll on a daily basis to the contractor who had bid for the market from the Corporation.
To add to the confusion were the Then Vadal Street traders who, too, wanted a place to sell their goods.
A few days ago, when the Corporation wanted to shift the traders at the makeshift markets at the Town and Central Bus Stands to the exhibition ground, abutting the Coimbatore Central Prison, on Dr. Nanjappa Road, the traders demanded that they all be accommodated.
At the time of shifting the traders had also asked the Corporation to reopen the T.K. Market so that at least a few of them could resume selling vegetables. They wanted the civic body to allow 50 from the first category (stall shops) and 50 from the second and third categories.
And, then they also demanded that the Corporation permit at least 150 traders to set shop at the exhibition ground so that 250 of the 422 traders who had lost their livelihood could resume business.
But failure in last-minute parleys and the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation deciding not to run buses until further orders from the State Government resulted in the traders continuing to sell from the two makeshift markets.
The Corporation meanwhile began searching for alternative locations for other traders, including those it had evicted from the Then Vadal Street. The sources said that the evicted traders had told the Corporation that they were not interested in moving away from the market unless and until the Corporation also moved the two categories of floor shop traders.
Their reason was that if the Corporation were to shift them alone they would lose business.
This demand had angered the floor shop traders who argued that it would be unfair to equate the evicted traders with them because they were inside the market and were paying toll to the contractors.
Even as it got caught in the demand and counter demand from the traders, the Corporation started surveying and marking spaces within the T.K. Market in the last couple of days.
Corporation sources said the civic body only tried to explore the possibility of reopening the market while allowing for physical distance but it was yet to take a decision as it wanted the Government’s clearance so to not repeat a Koyambedu in the city.
