MAPUSA
With the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) deciding to revert to the pre-Covid days and allow normal functioning of the municipal market, several vendors who were displaced due to pandemic restrictions have demanded proper rehabilitation in the market.
The market vendors complained that some of them were allotted restricted space after the market was partially opened after the restrictions were eased in June this year.
“At least 128 vendors who were sitting near the Shakuntala statue and the lane adjacent to it were asked not to sit in that area. We understand the decision taken by the council in the interest of the consumers but at least we have to be rehabilitated and accommodated at some other places,” a vendor said.
A group of vendors met MMC Chief Officer Kabir Shirgaonkar with a request to take an appropriate decision on their issue.
“It’s a question of our survival. We have been doing business in the market for the last several years. Our request to authorities is to look into the issue and take a decision at the earliest. We have suffered for the last several months due to the lockdown. We hope the government decides at the earliest,” another vendor said.
According to Digambar Hasotikar President of Mapusa Feir Vikrata Sena, the councillors of the Mapusa Municipal Council ignored the vendors and failed to take an appropriate decision in their interest.
“For the last several years, I have been writing to urban development ministers concerned to implement the Supreme Court decision and start a hawker’s zone so that the vendors could be accommodated,” Hasotikar said.
Apart from chairing two meetings of the town vending committee, he said, the Mapusa Municipal Council has failed to move any further on forming the hawker’s zone.
He demanded that the council and the government should look into the issue of the vendors and resolve their problems at the earliest.
MMC Chief Officer Kabir Shirgaonkar informed that the civic body was aware of the vendors’ problem and would soon relocate them at a new place.
