UMERKOT, Oct 15 The honour of having the Asia's largest chilli market in their midst is increasingly becoming a burden on people's general health in Kunri town, with a large number suffering from asthma, corpulmonale, emphysema, nasal polyp and conjunctivitis.

Mohammad Irshad, Khatoon and Ms Sabira, who are some of the people living in the vicinity of the chilli market, said that they and their families, especially minor children periodically suffered from sore throats, eye diseases and liver and heart problems.

They were unable to breathe because the air was so heavy with bitter dusty particles of chilli and their children could not sleep. They had no other option but to sell their houses and shift to some other place, they said.

They demanded shifting the market outside the settled area and said they had approached the taluka nazim and apprised him of the problems created by chilli market in the middle of the town.

Dr Teerath said that a large number of people in the town were suffering from asthma, corpulmonale, emphysema, nasal polyp, conjunctivitis (eye allergy).

Kunri Taluka Nazim Jam Memon admitted that the chilli market was a big environmental and health threat to people and said that he had tried to shift it from the thickly-populated area to a site outside the town and had proposed to construct it on build operate transfer basis during the previous government but it proved too expensive for shopkeepers.

He, therefore, requested the then chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim who ordered the market's shifting and a PC-I was prepared, which proposed to shift it to the 22 acres land bought by the TMA, two kilometres from the town.

MNA Nawab Mohammad Yousuf Talpur said that the chilli market in the middle of the town had become a menace for people but the proposed site for the market selected by the Arbab government and the TMA was not feasible.

The chairman of Red Chilli Association Mian Mohammad Saeed said that a processing centre for chilli crop, particularly in Mirpurkhas and Umerkot districts, would contain health hazards of chilli and enable it to meet standards of European countries, the USA and Japan, which had banned its import from Pakistan due to moisture and aflotaxin, a fungus.

Abdul Rahim Mughal said that 1600 to 2000 bags of chilli were brought to the market on a daily basis but there was no facility for transportation.

He demanded the government should lay a broad-gauge railway track from Pithoro to Kunri to help transport chilli.

Naseer Baloch, a labourer, said that around 1,800 labourers worked in the market and almost all of them were suffering from allergies, flue, tuberculosis, asthma, heart, throat, eyes and liver diseases.

In some cases, labourers suffered fatal accidents as they fell from trucks while loading or unloading the crop but there was no health facility for the injured and no protective gear to prevent injuries.

He recalled that his friends Behram lost his eyesight, Ramzan and Rustam had died of TB, Rahim fell unconscious and later died in the hospital and many others had developed allergies but they were forced to continue with the work because it was their only means to earn livelihood.

Pakistan is the fifth biggest red chilli producing country in the country and its biggest market in the country is in Kunri, a small town in Umerkot district. Besides Kunri, the chilli is also sown in Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Hyderabad, Sanghar, and Tando Allahyar.

The existing chilli market had been established in 1970 on eight acres out of which almost half area is owned by private parties and the remaining half is property of the TMA.