Traders have set up shops on the roadside near Kavoor Junction. | Photo Credit: H.S. MANJUNATH
More than four years after a modern market-cum-commercial complex of the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) at Kavoor was inaugurated, it remains unoccupied prompting Mayor Sudheer Shetty Kannur on Saturday to instruct the corporation Commissioner C.L. Anand to give a one-week deadline to persons concerned to occupy the space allotted to them or withdraw the allotment.
After inspecting the building, the Mayor told presspersons that only 10% of the space allotted by the civic body has been occupied.
Mr. Shetty said that he instructed the Commissioner to serve notices, on Monday, to all those persons who have been allotted the space and not occupied it. If they do not occupy the shops within a week, the corporation should take steps to cancel the allotment.
The Mayor said that many persons who hired the shops at the market building are doing business outside on the roadside near Kavoor Junction. They say that customers do not come to the market building for shopping as it is about 300 m away from the junction.
“If they stop doing business on the roadside, customers will come to the market building,” he said, and added: “If the traders refuse to budge the civic body will evict them from the roadside after warning them. The corporation will demolish their temporary structures on the roadside. Some have even taken power connection to those temporary structures.”
The government had invested ₹5.2 crore on the complex having a basement plus three floors. It was the second modern market built in the city, after Bejai market, with the provision for 57 commercial shops. Of them, the lower ground and upper ground floors have 42 shops, while the first floor has the remaining 15 shops.
The area of the 57 commercial shops varies from 150 sqft to 200 sqft. The basement has a provision for parking 16 cars and two-wheelers. It was the first market built in the city with the provision for a sewage treatment plant with 10,000 litres processing capacity and a biodegradable waste crusher unit. The unit was to crush non-vegetarian and vegetable waste as fine particles and flush it into the drain to join the STP.
The lower ground floor is meant for the vegetable market while the upper ground floor is for non-vegetarian stalls with a provision for 12 fish stalls, two egg stalls, and a stall each for selling dry fish, chicken, and mutton.
The then Urban Development Minister U.T. Khader had inaugurated it on February 17, 2019.
