The withdrawal of COVID-19 lockdown might have helped many people to resume their economic activities, but it has also worsened the lives of vegetable growers and sellers in Kalaburagi.
For, wholesale vegetable market which functioned at a relatively clean and neatly developed layout on the outskirts of the city during the lockdown was shifted back to what was locally known as Kanni Market near the Central Bus Stand. The new market place resembles the muddy field prepared for paddy transplantation.
Over a thousand farmers from nearby villages and more than 2,000 vegetable vendors, mostly women, come to this market to sell and purchase vegetables. They are forced to run their business standing on ankle-deep mud.
With no arrangements to keep the vegetables for selling, the farmers put vegetable bundles, bags and crates in the mud. The vegetables often slip from the hands and fall in the mud. The vendors clean them at their respective houses in the night and sell them on the push-carts next morning in the localities of Kalaburagi. There are several instances of people slipping and falling on the slippery ground and getting injured. Yet, nobody from the administration has bothered to look into it.
The market commences at 4 p.m. and continues till 11 p.m. every day except on Saturdays. The authorities never bothered to make some lighting arrangements, let alone shifting the market to some better and safer place. Vendors tie torchlight around their necks and carefully move in the dark on the muddy ground with loads on their heads and shoulders.
Thousands of vehicles – four-wheelers, two-wheelers, three-wheelers and push-carts – are brought to the place by farmers and vendors. They are chaotically parked along the roadside that often leads to traffic jam. Petty quarrel among people over parking issues are common scenes. But, no traffic police has been deployed to ensure proper parking.
To add to this, accumulation of garbage has added to their woes. With the incessant rains lashing the region for a fortnight now, the garbage generated in the market is simply left behind. Now, the whole market stinks.
“I don’t know what disease will emerge from Kalaburagi market if it continues to function the way it is now,” a farmer from a nearby village told The Hindu.
