Civic maintenance work in Gandhi Bazaar upsets shop owners

We will restore the Gandhi Bazaar area within three months, claims BBMP Engineer

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Gandhi Bazaar comes with a history that is over 125 years old. Known for its elaborate range of products, the market engages thousands every day with its lavish display of products and old-school tiffin houses exhibiting the rich history of the city. The marketplace was the epicenter for most of the city’s important programs like election campaigns and protests back in the 50s.

It is also home to famous bookstores like GK Bros, MS, and Sons which still attract many local readers. However, the New Year saw work in terms of civic maintenance, and even some pending issues being addressed by the civic authorities everywhere in Bangalore, including Gandhi Bazaar.

The ongoing work at the Gandhi Bazaar main road left many business owners worried, as many of them have experienced a drop in customer footfall in the last two months due to the civic intervention taking place in the market area. The locality is also facing issues of huge traffic on broken roads, with no legitimate footpath in place.

''Street vendors have been always called out by the residents, the very wind of the BBMP and Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) collaboration last year had made business shaky and now this maintenance work is causing harm to many,” Ram Raj Gowda, a street vendor encroaching on the remaining pedestrian pathway on the Gandhi bazaar main road said.  

Reena, his wife added that, earlier they used to earn about Rs 2000 by selling fresh produce of veggies, fruits and flowers but in the last few months the figure has dropped down to Rs 600, with some days resulting in a total loss for the couple.

“We have completed fixing the sanitary pipeline and the Storm water pipeline. We are now working on the water lines and white topping on the market road. Once we are done with that, then we will fix the pedestrian paths and work on the parking lot system,” Senior Engineer Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Ram Krishan said.  He added that the work is expected to take three months. BBMP has been placing sanitary pipelines, Storm water pipelines, electricity, and gas lines underground across all zones.

“We were not notified about this work and the next day when I came to open my shop, I found that the whole road was cut up, due to this we lost a lot of business during Deepavali, Gauri Ganesha, and Christmas last year. As many customers ordered online instead of coming down to Gandhi Bazaar for their festive shopping,” said Neelam, a street vendor selling betel leaves under a tree next to a broken pipeline.