Bhubaneswar Market Building shut after scuffle breaks out between Permanent Shopowners & illegal Street vendors

Following a scuffle between temporary and permanent vendors on Sunday, the Unit 2 Market Building in Bhubaneswar has been closed for an indefinite period, the traders association informed.

A week after their eviction from the Market Building, the vendors returned and forcibly tried to set up stalls in the market area. When association members opposed it, they allegedly assaulted them, sources said.

On being informed, a team from Capital police station reached the spot and quelled the tension.

Notably, the association has long been demanding the eviction of the street vendors from the marker complex for obstructing the usual business. The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is also planning an eviction drive to remove illegal encroachment by the street vendors, besides illegal extensions by the traders in front of the establishments to create space on the walkway.

The permanent shopkeepers association has openly alleged that the illegal street vendors from West Bengal, Bihar & even Bangladeshis are indulging in anti-social activities & behaving as goons issuing threats, sometimes passing comments on college girls.

Moreover, they are forcibly occupying the pathways so that local people cannot visit their shops to buy things.

It is to be noted that, this strike has been going on for a week now & Permanent shop owners have given an ultimatum to the Odisha govt & BMC to immediately remove the encroachers from market buildings failing which large-scale protests would be organized across Odisha & all shops will be shut down across Odisha for 1 day.

Street vendors association had also commenced protests asking govt of Odisha to give them separate areas for vending or setting up their shops.

Odisha has been long grappling with illegal Bangladeshi & Rohingya infestation with the ruling BJD govt looking the other way & Odisha police not doing enough to stop the influx of Bangladeshis via West Bengal.

Odisha govt is often accused allegedly by opposition parties for following the footsteps of WB CM Mamata Banerjee's Muslim appeasement politics & denying to take action against illegal Bangladeshis.

Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik has even said to "NO to NRC" in a press conference during the CAA Protests when the controversy of bringing CAA & NRC was given hot air.