CUTTACK: With the decision to put Pallishree Mela stalls at Balijatra up for auction drawing sharp outrage, the district administration on Friday backed down, announcing that it has been cancelled and stalls will instead be allotted through lottery.
The move came after a report published in theTNIE, titled ‘Stalls up for auction, Pallishree Mela shuts its door on rural enterprises’ raised the problems faced by rural enterprises, community-based organizations (CBOs), SHGs, farmers’ producer groups, etc.
However, the cancellation and the lottery system still threaten to deprive the very rural enterprises the national-level fair was meant to serve. Even as the administration said it had called off the auction, rural entrepreneurs and artisans remain confused. No change has been made to the existing notification, which still provides for an auction, they said.
“Registered food enterprises, restaurants, café entrepreneurs, trading organisations and corporate organisations are also eligible for online registration and allotment of paid stalls. If the lottery goes in their favour, we will be deprived of the opportunity to set up our stalls at Pallishree Mela,” they said. They also questioned how they could rely on a verbal assurance about the cancellation of the auction.
They demanded that the administration should cancel the existing notification and issue a fresh one spelling out the revised guidelines, eligibility criteria and the stall allotment process.
Chief development officer and executive officer of Cuttack zilla parishad Prasant Kumar Nayak, who also chairs the stall allotment committee, confirmed on Friday that there would be no auction of stalls at the Pallishree Mela pavilion.
“Following criticism, we have withdrawn the decision to put 170 stalls at Pallishree Mela up for public bidding, with a base price of `25,000 for food stalls and Rs 20,000 for other stalls. A lottery system will be introduced to allot stalls at the base price in cases where there is more than one applicant for a particular stall,” said Nayak.
Asked whether a fresh notification would be issued to cancel the existing one and incorporate the revised guidelines, eligibility criteria and allotment process, Nayak admitted that no such notification had been issued so far regarding the cancellation of the auction or the introduction of the lottery.
“Though registered food enterprises, restaurants, café entrepreneurs, trading organisations and corporate organisations are eligible to apply online for allotment of paid stalls, we have a scrutiny committee that will accord priority in allotment at the base price to CBOs, including women SHGs, PGs, FPOs, rural entrepreneurs and artisans,” Nayak said.
