Sandhai inside, business outside

CHENNAI: During the then DMK regime in 1996-2001, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had launched Uzhavar Sandhai, an initiative to ensure farmers get a fair price for the farm produce.

Twenty four years later, Uzhavar Sandhai (farmer’s market) in Tiruvallur is gasping for life with poor footfall, and just five of 28 shops are functional.

Farmers are on the streets selling their wares, ignoring the Sandhai, which affects traffic especially on festival days. Farmers prefer street-hawking as they believe it gets more customers and thus ignore the Sandhai.

Only five shops are open everyday inside the Sandhai. “Despite several measures being taken by the Agriculture Marketing department to draw the attention of farmers and other vendors to sell farm produce, the Sandhai continues to be in a bad shape with less footfall,” said local vendors.

Consumers find it easier to buy it from outside shops rather than walk into the Sandhai. Shops functioning outside are owned by private dealers and other roadside shop-owners pay tax to the Tiruvallur Municipality.

Though officials of the Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business Department conducted awareness programmes for farmers and other vendors in nearby villages to use the marketplace, farmers and other vendors do not find the Sandhai lucrative.

“For the last 15 years, I’ve been selling flowers and garlands in Uzhavar Sandhai. This place was busy and always crowded in the initial days. But, after the arrival of shops outside the market, people don’t step in here. The crowd thinned out, and gradually, farmers moved out. Now only 5 shops are functioning,” recalled a woman flower vendor. “A few years ago, the State government renovated the Sandhai and tried to convince farmers and roadside vendors to sell inside the premises. A few did, but over time, they too took their business outside the Sandhai due to time restrictions.”

Another street vendor, who had utilised the Sandhai in the initial days, said that time restrictions were a huge problem especially in the flower business. “I’m neither a farmer nor a landowner. I sell flowers every day. Our prime sales time is 6 pm – 9 pm, but Uzhavar Sandhai functions till 4 pm only. This restriction made us go outside,” pointed out the vendor.

Besides, he doesn’t own the space inside the Sandhai. Buying from wholesalers and selling them on the roadside does not leave him with enough money to pay Rs 4,500/month monthly rent to the shop owner. “As street vendors, we pay Rs 30/day to the Tiruvallur Municipality. Under the Street Vendor Scheme, some of us even have municipality-issued ID cards. This is cheaper and doable for us than being inside the Sandhai,” he added.

However, as the only farmer who cultivates and sells vegetables, another trader prefers to conduct business inside the Uzhavar Sandhai. “For the past 6 years, I’ve been selling here and it’s more profitable than selling from the streets,” he explained. “Wholesalers buy goods at a lower cost, and sell them to us with a margin. But here, I sell my vegetables by fixing the market price. Whatever remains unsold, I take them back to my village and sell them at a marginal price there.”

Admitting that there are issues that need to be fixed, Ilakkiya Bharathi, assistant administrative officer, Agricultural Marketing & Agri Business Department, said, “In 3 months, on every Saturday from January to March, we conducted an awareness programme to farmers in 6 villages. We distributed ID cards to farmers and street vendors and also extended the timings of Uzhavar Sandhai to8 pm from 4 pm.”

When contacted, District Collector T Prabhushankar, Tiruvallur, told DT Next, “I took charge as Collector of Tiruvallur district just four months ago. This has been a long-term problem in the area. We’ll sort it out soon.”