Every morning, Karthikeyan wakes up early and picks up a jute bag with wooden handles and hurriedly runs his hands through his hair and rushes out of the house. “I have to be there early, otherwise I won’t have the best pick of vegetables.”
He is rushing to Uzhavar Sandhai at Lawspet, where farmers all over the Union Territory bring their produce. There are others who bring fruits and vegetables from Koyambedu.
The market, which had been shut for a while, has been reopened. It has been running smoothly for three months and has received a huge response.
ADVERTISEMENT
Parvathy is a regular at the market. “The biggest advantage of purchasing at Uzhavar Sandhai is freshness of the goods, especially those from the nearby villages. If we come before 8 a.m., we are sure to get the best goods,” she said.
For some time, the market had been closed. Regular customers shifted loyalties to nearby vegetables shops. “Now that the market is open, we have all decided to buy vegetables from our good old place. After all, why should we lose out on the fresh goodies available here,” said Vinodha.
Old projectsADVERTISEMENT
The Uzhavar Sandhai revival is just only one of the many old projects of the Pondicherry Agro Service and Industries Corporation Limited that was developed to provide support to farmers in the Union Territory.
It has re-started its mineral water plant, orchards, ornamental plant scheme, urban compost, borewell and civil works schemes.
Through this, the corporation hopes to help out the farmers who have been struggling in recent times, PASIC in-charge K. Ramamurthy said.
Salaries paidFor the past one month, PASIC has also been paying their employees 60 per cent of their salaries, which had been stopped for the past 19 months. The payment of the second month’s salaries has also started, he said.