HYDERABAD: The once stinking and grimy wholesale fish market of the Nizam era in the busy Begum Bazar, which has made the lives of people in the surrounding areas miserable, is going to be a thing of the past. The all-new spick and span market, built by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is set for inauguration on Saturday Apart from clean environs, the customers will have the benefit of getting a variety of seafood at reasonable price at one place compared to private retail outlets. With this new facility, the seafood will no longer be exposed to flies and dust.
The new facility, built at a cost of Rs 9.4 crore with funds from the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), has a cellar, ground plus two floors with a built-up area of 3,539 square metres. There will be a total of 214 stalls which include the whole section (43), cutting section (72), retail section (91) and dry fish section (8). The cellar floor will be for parking, the ground floor will have a wholesale section, ice flake machine and cold storage room. The first floor will have a cutting section and retail section and the second floor will have a dry fish section with a canteen.
GHMC officials told Express that the new fish market puts an end to an unhygienic environment and chaotic arrangement of vendors. There will be a sea change with a systematic arrangement of stalls and selling methods. It is a means of livelihood for aqua farmers. The market encourages them to sustain and expand their production as much as they can.
Hygiene will be the most striking factor at the fish market while traffic chaos, which was another major put-off for many customers, too will be done away with, they said. The issues like inadequate water supply, sewerage system, faulty power supply and most importantly, the absence of a proper parking space for the hundreds of customers who throng the market, especially during the weekends has been solved. There will be sufficient parking space in the cellar.