More than 70 vendors of Saheed Nagar Market protested outside the newly constructed BMC Bhawani Mall alleging irregularity in allotment of shops in the mall on Friday.
Numerous vendors were displaced for construction of the mall with an assurance to rehabilitate them in the new shops in the mall. The vendors started protesting against the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) claiming that the shops have been allotted to private shopkeepers instead of them as promised.
But BMC Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said around 52,000 square feet space on the ground floor has been kept aside by the owners to be provided to the displaced vendors.
Senior BMC officials confirmed that around 110 vendors who were displaced for the construction will be allotted shops. Documents for additional vendors who are asking allotment in the mall premises are being scrutinised by BMC officials.
Once the scrutiny is completed on November 3, the final list of vendors will be forwarded to Housing and Urban Development Department. The final allotment will be done only after the department’s approval. The displaced vendors left after Jena’s assurance that the Bhawani officials had not given away their rightful shops to private shopkeepers.