With the Corporation serving notice to 240 shopkeepers at the E.K.M. Abdul Gani Textile Market (Gani Market) at Panneerselvam Park to vacate the shops, traders closed their shops for the day, here on Tuesday.
As many as 1,000 textile shops, both weekly and daily, were functioning on the market premises for 45 years that witness brisk business from Monday afternoon to Tuesday evening. In 2019, the civic body began constructing the modernised textile hub with 262 shops. The traders wanted priority to be given to the existing traders in allocation of shops on the new premises and opposed auctioning of shops. But the Corporation said the shops would be allotted only through general auctioning. The traders filed a case in the Madras High Court. The court, in its order, asked 106 traders to vacate the shops, while the civic body asked another 134 traders to vacate the shops. A total of 240 shopkeepers were asked to vacate the shops.
Members of the Erode Gani Market Weekly Textile Traders’ Association said they were paying all the taxes to the Corporation without delay. They wanted priority to be given to traders who were already running their shops in the old structures that were demolished for constructing the complex. They wanted the deposits and rent for the new shops to be reduced as all of them were small traders.
The traders met Minister for Housing and Urban Development S. Muthusamy who assured to take up the issue with the District Collector.
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