K.R. Puram to lose its market—but vendors haven’t been told

Bangalore landmark is on the list of 4 bazaars that the municipal corporation plans to turn into shopping complexes

More than 150 vendors earn their livelihood by selling flowers at the market every day.

By Ankita Lath

BANGALORE (Oct. 18)—K.R. Puram Market is being demolished to make way for a multiutility complex, but no official notice has been given to the farmers and vendors.

The farmers and vendors told The SoftCopy they heard the news from their friends who read it online, and that they asked the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike and the Bangalore Development Authority about the proposal, but were told there is no such plan of action or proposal.

However, The SoftCopy has an “open for booking” advertisement sheet that has a BDA logo on it. The advertisement says the BDA plans to build a multiutility commercial complex of 16 floors for mall and office use.

The market’s farmers and vendors association has gone on strike many times in the last few months to protest against the plan and also organized a rally from the market to Freedom Park near the city center.

‘With all the cars coming, where will we put our carts?’

Women are an important part of the market, selling vegetables, flowers and accessories such as bangles.

The president of the association, Srinivas, said the market is a means through which thousands of farmers and vendors earn their daily livelihood.

“The security guards check bags at the entrance of the mall, so how are the vendors and farmers going to get in?” he said. “With all the people coming in cars, where will they put their carts?”

In an attempt to learn why the farmers and vendors had not received official notice of the redevelopment plan, The SoftCopy spoke to the BDA’s executive engineer and was directed to the public relations officer, who said the matter was the responsibility of the engineering department, which provided the number of the assistant executive engineer. None would give a straight answer.

Academic: Looking after vendors should be primary concern

A pamphlet printed by the Bangalore Development Authority inviting tenants for the planned mall that was given to the president of the farmers and vendors association by a source at the BDA.

Ashwani Luthra, former head of the Town Planning Department at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, said that in carrying out such development exercise, “rehabilitation is the primary issue. The people involved should be reallocated…in a formal manner to a suitable place.”

The association is worried that if a complex is constructed in the area where its members have been earning their livelihood all their lives, as the generation before them did, there will be no place for them to go as it virtually impossible for the corporation and authority to allot space to the thousands of people the association represents.

Srinivas said the association had talked to the MLA concerned, but in vain.

The association has opened a website, www.akfva.org, to “show our grievances to the world” and hopes this will help it put across its viewpoint and concerns.

Some customers visit the market on a daily basis, some come thrice a week and some twice a month.

Vegetable seller fears entry of big retailers

B. Banakesh, a vendor who sells vegetables in the market, thinks the BDA will relocate him and other vendors somewhere nearby after the mall is built. But he expressed concern about potential losses, pointing out that if stores like Big Bazaar and Reliance open branches there, people will stop buying his vegetables.

A consumer at the market who purchases vegetables every week from the market said he had “no idea” that there were plans to build a multipurpose complex there.

The farmers and vendors association has also filed a right to information request, but nothing came of it. They requested information regarding the planned mall, but the BDA, in its reply, claimed that it “could not understand” which information the association wanted.

They received no relevant information about the plan, funds or the construction of the complex.