Team Herald
PANJIM: A day after the power supply was cut off from the public area of the Panjim Municipal Market over Corporation of the City of Panjim’s (CCP) failure to clear power bills amounting to more than Rs 3 crore, small market vendors say operating in the dark is the biggest concern for them.
Local vendors who sell their produces on the platforms (also called as sopekars) are the worst hit in the entire market premises as they depend entirely on street lightings.
Speaking to Herald, fruit and vegetable vendors have expressed complete dissatisfaction and are blaming the CCP for throwing them in such dark situations.
“My business has been affected since yesterday and will continue to affect me till the power supply is not restored. The market was pitch dark yesterday and due to this no customer came to purchase any of our produces thus putting our business at risk. On daily basis, we regularly clear all produces and don’t keep any vegetables for the next day. But today we are forced to keep yesterdays produces, as it was not sold,” said Kalavati Naik, a vegetable vendor at the Panjim market.
It was also revealed that a majority of the vendors in anger refused to pay sopo charges of Rs 10 per day, which is collected by the contractors on behalf of the CCP. “Today a majority of the vendors including me have refused to pay Rs 10 to the sopo contractor, a fee which is collected from us on a daily basis. Why should we pay the money if we do not get proper services? It has been many years that we paid these charges. The CCP must have collected so much money with this, couldn’t they pay the electricity bills?’’ questioned a vegetable vendor named Kesar Kukalkar.
It was also witnessed on Monday evening that aged as well as youth had problems walking in the market premises due to darkness and this forced majority of themchose to leave the place.
Another vendor named Faisal Ismail Qureshi had to say this “Platform vendors are hit the most as we do not have electricity connections and due to this we have to be dependent of public lighting. Not a single customer came to my counter and yesterday from 6.45 pm till 8.10 pm my entire counter had only candle as a source of light. I suffered minor loss but if this continues, my business will be hit”
However, according to the Electricity Department the CCP had enough days to respond to the disconnection notice as the department had also further given an extension of five days.
“The public as well as the vendors are affected due to the power disconnection. I do not understand when the CCP collects sopo fees, how they cannot be in the position to pay the power bills. The platform vendors are the most affected as they do not have a connection and were dependent on public light” said Dharmendra Bhagat, Secretary, Market Tenant Association
