The weekly Sunday market committee submitted a memorandum to the municipal commissioner of the municipal corporation of Dehradun (MCD) on Monday, alleging the civic body’s apathy for selecting an alternative site for the holding of the market.
The members of the committee alleged that despite the promises earlier dished out by the MCD officers, nothing has been decided about an alternative place for the weekly market. Notably, the weekly market is not being held following the launch of the court-ordered demolition drive.
The traders who claim they eke out their living through the weekly market say that they are in grim financial crisis as the trade has been stalled. “We have been stopped from holding the market for four consecutive Sundays. We are in deep livelihood crisis,” said the head of the committee Gulshan while addressing the media persons on Monday.
“The Government talks a lot about giving employment to the people, but in reality, they are snatching away the only source of income we have, reducing us to penury. We have been stopped from setting shops for four consecutive Sundays. We are incurring huge losses. When we went to MCD and presented our problem to the officers they promised that an alternative place would be found out for us in due course of time. But nothing has been done so far,” Gulshan said.
Echoing the same sentiment, another member of the committee Manish Rekhi said that they are being left to bear the brunt of the anti-encroachment drive. “This despite the fact that we have the civic body’s permission with us to hold the weekly market,” he said. To buttress his point, he said that MCD team used to take Rs 300 from each stall owner every Sunday.
“As per our estimate, MCD earned around Rs 3 lakh per month this way. All of a sudden, they decided to stop us from holding the market. Where will we go with our families and childrenIJ Things are such that we are finding it difficult to pay our children’s school fees. Things going from bad to worse for us, we would have to take to the roads to make the administration to take note of our suffering if they continue to sit on the matter,” Rekhi said.
Quizzed over the matter, the MCD officers said that there was little possibility of an immediate solution of the problem. “It will definitely take time as we are now engaged with the slums of the city,” said an officer while insisting on anonymity.