Bantwal: The famous Farangipet fish market on Bangalore – B C Road national highway situated in Railway land faces imminent closure as railway officials want to take possession of the property.
The old market near Farangipet bus stand was shifted to the current premises near Kumpanamajalu cross after the national highway turned into four lane road. In the current location, ample space was unavailable for parking vehicles. When road users complained about the mess, district SP Bhushan G. Borase had drawn the attention of public in the area about the traffic congestion and instructed his officials to take stringent measures against traffic violators to ease traffic flow.
Local police officials then asked the fish vending community to provide space for parking to continue their businesses. That time, they leveled adjacent vacant land to facilitate parking. Sniffing problem, Puttur railway division officials rushed to the spot and asked the vendors to vacate from their land. Vendors protested strongly against railways move and managed to silence the team of officials on that occasion. However, the fear lingers as railway officials are likely to force eviction on vending community in the near future.
Considering the prevailing situation the fish vending community has requested the local gram panchayath to provide alternate land to continue their business as usual.
Reacting to the situation former Zilla Panchyath member Ummar Farooq said, “local GP does not have any land in its possession for fish market and had sought the present premises on a 25 year lease. Railway officials have not responded to the request and the same was conveyed to minister U T Khadar and a meeting of railway, police and highway officials is likely in the next few days to resolve the issue”.
Local GP member Sulaiman said, railway land has been encroached by many people to construct houses, private buildings and places of worship and sought eviction of those properties before acquiring fish market land.
