It isn’t strange to hear the occasional hanga io re baba, nustem vor re (come here son, buy some fish) when passing through Mapusa’s favourite Friday market. It is easy to confuse lanes of vendors selling clothes, dry fish, fruits, vegetables and flowers among many others.
Spread over 29,000 square meters behind the Mapusa bus stand, the Friday market attracts people from all over the state who flock for the best deals.
But caught in the middle of a heated debate is the centrally located building called the flower market.
The Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC), under whose jurisdiction the market falls, has put together a new master plan for the city that includes development plans for the bus stand and the market. The plan details pedestrian and pay parking zones, areas for vendors and also proposes building new infrastructure.
Though the bus stand and new infrastructure received mixed reactions, the plans for the flower market building didn’t find favour with the flower vendors. They are vehemently opposed to the demolition of the existing building to make way for a ground plus one structure and even observed a half-day bandh, marching to the MMC office in protest.
One flower vendor at the market says she doesn’t see the rationale behind demolishing the building, “This building has been here for so long and isn’t showing signs of crumbling either. Perhaps there are a few cracks in the ceiling but there is no need to demolish it,” she says adding that the municipality just wants to make money
And money is certainly at the centre of this controversy. MMC Chairperson Sandeep Falari says the municipality’s earning from the building is less than what the shop owners are earning themselves.
“This is a 1,000 sq mt area right in the middle of Mapusa’s prime commercial space with shops and daily wagers. The municipality earns Rs 45,000 a month when there are shops being sublet clandestinely for Rs 25,000-30,000 each. The main stakeholders are the people of Mapusa. We as the municipality are the custodians of this property and all we are trying to do is put it to optimum use and extract the prime potential of this land. I don’t think there is any problem,” he says, adding that the top floor of the building will be auctioned in a transparent manner to help raise the much needed funds for the municipality.
Initially however, the current flower market was intended to be the fish market. The flower and jaggery vendors and tailors that today sit in the building say they feel safer in the old building. And to back them up are other shop owners from the market.
One jeweler who is opposed to the demolition of the building says it is stronger than people think as it was built during the Portuguese era. Having an entirely new building built in the middle will ruin the feel of the area.
The proof of the strength of the building, shopkeepers say, is in the walls. “It is really difficult to drill holes or put a nail into the wall. This is how strong the building is,” a hardware store owner says.
President of the Mapusa Market Association Yeshwant Gawandalkar owns a cloth shop handed down to him from his father who had bought the shop when it was built back in 1959. Talking about the municipality’s plans, he says no shop owner in the market complex supports the building of the ground plus one structure. He suspects this will lead to even more traffic congestion and confusion which will only add to the existing chaos.
“At most, just a few leaks here and there need to be fixed. Just look at the fish market that the municipality built 15 years ago. There tiles are falling off and the ceiling is leaking. It is in much worse shape than our age old building,” he says.
When it was built 55 years ago, the market complex had been so designed that the jewelers and cloth merchants had been given the space at the back of the complex, with the flower market centrally located.
The idea behind this, one cloth vendor elucidates, was for people to easily enter the market, buy their groceries for the day and look at the gold or just breeze through the latest cloths in demand at their leisure.
Review Bureau
