Chandigarh MC turns blind eye to illegal Mani Majra market

Chandigarh, February 26

With the MC turning a blind eye to encroachments by vendors, an illegal market alongside the boundary wall of the Civil Hospital, Mani Majra, continues to inconvenience people.

The vendors selling clothes, eatables and other items leave little space for pedestrians. Traffic gets disrupted due to the rush at the market in the evening. “Local residents are inconvenienced due to the insanitary conditions around the area. These vendors were allocated space here temporarily during the Covid times. The market grew in size as the MC failed to remove them. Some of the vendors here have their own shops, which they have rented out,” said Malkiat Singh, president, Mani Majra Beopar Mandal. According to information, these are registered vendors, who were given vending space in the IT Park, but they refused to run business from there citing several reasons. They were finally allowed to do business at this place till new sites were earmarked for them. But even after the UT Chief Architect, Department of Urban Planning, approved alternative sites for these vendors in Mani Majra in October last year, the civic body could not shift them.

Meanwhile, an MC official said, “The new vending zones are being developed. They will soon be shifted there.”

Municipal Commissioner Anindita Mitra said the corporation was regularly carrying out anti-encroachment drives.