HYDERABAD: Vegetable and fruit traders complain that they are being coerced to shift to new sabzi mandi from the old mandi in violation of Sindh High Court’s orders and clarify that they are ready to go to the new venue but they want problem of duplicate allotments resolved first.

The traders’ action committee leaders Mohammad Asif and Abdul Rehman Arain said at a press conference at local press club on Friday that May 18 order of a division bench of the SHC Hyderabad circuit which had said “principle operations of the mandi will commence at the new sabzi mandi including auction proceeding etc and no coercive action shall be taken against those petitioner(s) who continue to run their trade in old sabzi mandi”.

Hyderabad Deputy Commissioner Fuad Ghaffar Soomro had referred to an “undertaking” of representatives of Onion, Potato and Vegetable Commission Agent Group on June 23 and said that “from June 26, potato, tomato, onion and all kinds of vegetables will be auctioned at the new sabzi mandi near Hala Naka”.

The undertaking, according to the DC, said “all types of wholesale and retail businesses will be carried out at the new sabzi mandi and it will be the only auction (venue) for Hyderabad.”

The DC said that Hyderabad SSP would arrange adequate police force at both mandis to ensure that no law and order situation was created and asked market committee chairman to facilitate the shifting process.

The action committee leaders said: “Names of around 2,000 allottees of new sabzi mandi have been put on record”. They would not object if the administration started trade through the 2,000 allottees along with those who intended to shift to the new sabzi mandi voluntarily but the “administration should refrain from harassing them and taking coercive action in violation of court’s orders”.

Rehman Arain said that Altaf Memon was ‘self styled’ president of vegetable traders of the mandi and he had unilaterally submitted the undertaking to the market committee for shifting.

He alleged that Memon was himself beneficiary of allotment of plots in new sabzi mandi which was in fact an Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded project.

He said that even amenity plots had been sold to multiple buyers in the new sabzi mandi. An inquiry was ordered into the anomalies but its outcome remained unknown and the crux of the matter was not being discussed by the administration and the market committee, he said.

He said that market committee chairman Shahnawaz Rind had been “thrust” over traders, though could not become administrator of Hyderabad Market Committee in line with Agriculture Produce Act 1939 because he was resident of Shaheed Benazirabad.

Old sabzi mandi is located in the middle of the city, which creates a host of civic issues including accumulation of sewage because a drain runs parallel to the mandi. Some encroachments had been removed from the drain by the administration for desilting to save localities behind the mandi from inundation in rainy season.

Police deployment

Asif Arain said that the petitioners who were not willing to shift to new sabzi mandi were being coerced. Police was deployed at Fateh Chowk on Friday night to stop vegetables from reaching the old sabzi mandi, he said.

He said that he and others were petitioners in several petitions but they were not being given a hearing.

The DC said that since principal auction was to be held at the new sabzi mandi as per SHC orders, therefore, vegetables were to be shifted there in view of pandemic.

He said that all the petitioners, who wanted to continue their trade in the old sabzi mandi, could do it accordingly after participating in auction at the new mandi as per court’s order. Nobody would stop them from running their trade in the old mandi but ‘principle’ auctions were to be held at the new site, he added.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2021