NAGAPATTINAM: Once a bustling market in the heart of the town, the Moulana Abul Kalam Azad Market has been reduced to a shadow of its past.
A fully constructed market complex with toilet facilities and roughly 30 individual shops at the exterior and nearly 20 co-joined facilities for fish and meat shops on the inside, the market was inaugurated nearly two years ago at Rs 2.23 crore. Fewer than 10 shops in the exterior have been occupied by shopkeepers, with the rest of the facilities put to sleep.
The shopkeepers, fisherwomen and butchers flag high rentals and deposit amounts as the issue for taking a shop in the complex. The market complex is built by demolishing an old market complex which operated for decades.
Fish markets and meat shops were present inside the old market, but it is now inaccessible to the fisherwomen and butchers who moved out during the construction.
V Vedhavadhi, a fisherwoman from Akkaraipettai, who used to sell fish inside the complex said, "There used to be a huge crowd every day in the fish market, and we ran a really profitable business."
She now sits somewhere inside another market complex, along with other fisherwomen, where they have no visibility. "The sales have gone down drastically, and the public doesn't know where we are. They move to other markets," she added.
The shopkeepers say the amount of rent and deposit is high and demand a daily rental basis, which the municipality used to collect before the new market complex was built. "I'm paying a rent of Rs 6000 per month. Before this, I used to pay Rs 100 every day to the municipality on a daily rental basis. The business is also not like before, with the empty shops," said V Manoharan, a banana fruit and leaf seller who occupied a shop in the new complex.
"The Azad market used to be a prominent market, especially during festivities. Now the fisherwomen and the shopkeepers are losing their business because of the financial hindrances, where the tender demands a deposit of Rs 6 lakh for individual exterior shops and less than that for the interior fish and meat market facility," said K Venkatesan, town secretary of CPI(M), demanding that the old daily rental with no deposit should be followed again.
A senior official from the Nagapattinam municipality office told TNIE, "A scrutinising committee has been set up to revise the rental and deposit amount. Once they submit a report, the tenders will be floated again with the revised rental and deposit." The official also added that the duration for which the report will be submitted, and the tender will be floated, is yet to be known.