The Times of India          07.11.2013 

Pondy Bazaar gets a new deal

Pondy Bazaar, usually bustling with determined shoppers, had a different set of equally resolute visitors on Wednesday — police and corporation officials who came with bulldozers to clear the shops that had lined both sides of Theagaraya Road for more than three decades.

The Chennai Corporation evicted 96 hawkers from Pondy Bazaar on Theagaraya Road. Less than 12 hours after the corporation's deadline for the hawkers to move into a three-storeyed building expired, the officers moved in. Most of the shopkeepers cooperated with them, and began carting the products away.

Except for a group of 12 flower sellers, who begged the officers for more time, the rest moved out. Fourteen vendors who protested against their shops being removed were not allotted space in the hawkers' complex. "We have told them to move to Deendayalan Street temporarily," said a corporation official.

Many of the hawkers had started moving off the street on Tuesday night. They began dismantling their wooden stalls when they saw the police arrive. "We will do what the corporation says. They were nice enough to extend the deadline three times," said Bukkran Mohammed, who has been selling readymade clothes here since 1972.

Though all the shops were cleared by Wednesday noon, many hawkers were seen sitting in little groups confiding their fears and consoling one another. "The products we sell are stuff that catch the eye and tempt people to buy at the spur of the moment," said S Gani, who has been running a toy shop for a little over seven years. "People are unlikely to come into a complex like this and hunt for our products."

The hawkers said that the building is badly designed and unsafe. "The corridors are less than threefeet wide. Only two people can walk together at a time," said Mohammed, who also had an Indian clothes store. "We were allotted 5ftx5ft of space, but each of us gave up half a foot to make the corridors wider," he said.

"There are only four exits and the corridors are too narrow for people to escape if there is an emergency," said K Jothi, vice-president of Pondy Bazaar Hawkers' Association.

Around 300 shops were ready on Wednesday evening, said B Karunanidhi, general secretary, Federation of Small Traders' Associations. "The work on all 529 shops will be completed only when every shopkeeper has the finances to complete the work," he said. The complex will house 629 shops of which 100 on the ground floor will be occupied by the flower, vegetable and fruits market.

Shopkeepers said they had to spend Rs 22,000 to Rs 30,000 to get their shops ready. "We have to get the shutters, steel posts, separators, wiring, electric meters and other things," said Gani.