The 129 licencees or shop owners of Ashoka Market were allotted shops at different locations across the city for the forthcoming Bhubaneswar Town Centre (BTC) project. In a lottery conducted in the premises of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), the shops were allotted.
The shop owners, to vacate the Ashoka Market, will be accommodated temporarily at Chandralok Market Complex, Niladri Vihar, Ananta Vihar Market Complex, Pokhariput, Samanta Vihar Market Complex near Kalinga Hospital Square, Kalinga Nagar Market Complex (two locations in K-7 and one in K-8 of Kalinga Nagar), Indradahnu Market Complex, Nayapalli and Surya Kiran Market Complex in Sahid Nagar.
Now the shop owners have to vacate the complex within 15 days time starting from Monday so that the project would start immediately. Singapore-based Surbana Jurong Consultants will design the ambitious BTC project.
It can be mentioned here that following a public notice and individual notices to the allottees of Ashoka Market by BDA, the licencees had filed cases in the Orissa High Court. However, after hearing, the court directed in its judgement that the licencees have to shift their shops to the new locations allotted by BDA within two weeks time to facilitate the development authority to go ahead with the new construction at the BTC site.
However, as per the court order, the licencees will be allotted shop rooms in the new complex to be set up at BTC on priority basis, but this would be subjected to conditions laid by the developing authority while allocating the new shops in the proposed complex. It can be mentioned here that on February 16, 2016, BDA issued a public notice to Ashoka Market Merchants’ Society and the individual shop owners in this regard.
The BTC project will primarily have elements like theatre plaza, retail and malls, nature plaza, landscape, town plaza, art plaza, experience plaza and children’s plaza. This will also have food courts, service apartments, pedestrianised streets along with dedicated pedestrian and cycling paths and the entire project would have an interactive as well as innovative environment.