The new board of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to address the concerns of the stall owners of Lansdowne market on Sarat Bose Road in south Kolkata before reviving a makeover project of the crumbling landmark.
On Tuesday, mayor Firhad Hakim visited the market, one among the 52 bazaars run by the civic body, and assured stall owners and members of the market committee that the KMC was ready to talk to them to address misgivings that may have about the project.
Shop owners had shut the market on Tuesday protesting the civic body’s alleged apathy in addressing some of their demands, including making immediate arrangements for car parking around the market and replacing the existing developer of the market with a new one.
“The Lansdowne market has been in a dilapidated state for several years now. Any untoward incident can result in loss of lives. The shop owners too have been losing out on customers because of the market’s poor condition. I visited the market and told the shop owners that if you have any issues, any problem, come to me. I will sort it out,” the mayor said.
The modernisation project of the Lansdowne market has been struggling to take off since 1986 with a majority of the 450-odd shop owners allegedly involved in in-fighting and refusing to cooperate with the civic body on the rehabilitation scheme.
Since February the newly elected civic board has been trying to set in motion the process of giving the old market a makeover through a public-private partnership.
According to the plan, an eight-storeyed building with a parking lot will come up on a two-and-a-half bigha plot.
The civic body wants to complete the process within two years before handing over the stalls to the owners through a lottery.
A section of shop owners said on Tuesday that they were averse to shifting to the new building since it was not “customer-friendly”.