Traders's ultimatum to CMDA

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, APRIL 1. Traders of the Koyambedu market on Saturday demanded that the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) hand over management of the complex to them. `The CMDA does not have the expertise. For the last four years, they have failed to run the market efficiently,' they said.

They drew a list of demands to be met by the CMDA failing which they would go on an indefinite strike from April 9.

Presently, the Market Management Committee (MMC) is made up of CMDA officials, their appointees which includes non-traders and Koyambedu licence holders.

Mr. C. Shanmugasundaram, former committee member, claimed proper elections were not conducted while constituting the committee. Some MMC members were misusing their office for personal gains, he charged. He recently tendered his resignation as member of the committee.

The traders said the market would function efficiently if they manned the committee. `We know the necessities of the market and better equipped to manage it,' they said.

Incidentally, the traders were largely divided among themselves and had formed more than 20 associations. But on Friday, they got together to form an umbrella association - `a high-level committee' - to take on the CMDA.

The immediate provocation had been the seizure of a licenced fruit trader's vehicle by the CMDA and `the agency's indifference to their one-day strike on March 28.' They were miffed that the licenced traders were facing the brunt of the CMDA's anti- encroachment drive in the market.

According to them, there were more encroachers than traders. The CMDA should differentiate between licence-holders and encroachers, they said. `We are suffering huge losses due to such raids. The godowns were being misused by the encroachers.

There was no drinking water supply to the market in the last four years and no emergency medical facility.

Their main demands were, among other things, sale deeds for the shops should be handed over to those licence holders who had completed their payments and receipts be given to new licence holders.

The traders demanded that wholesale fruit, vegetable or flower trade in the City be allowed only in Koyambedu market, as was stated in the Tamil Nadu Specified Commodities Markets Act, 1996. They suggested many unused shops in the market could be put to use.

A trader said when they were offered `the biggest such complex in Asia', they were promised the best facilities to boost their trade. `What we are protesting against now is the unkept promise of the CMDA.'

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Section  : Southern States
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