Weekly Market relocation – How stakeholder consultation, proper planning and execution made it happen!

Every village, town, city has a marketplace. A weekly marketplace may be as old as settled habitations and civilization. The weekly marketplace can be many things all at once – a place for exchange of commodities, a hangout, a meeting point etc. My childhood memories of a weekly bazar in my maternal village brings vivid memories. The various hues and colours of the bazar with its aromatic masalas, the sweetmeats, the toys, the camel ride etc were sheer fun for a 10 year old. Accompanied by cousins and few paise in hand, it was nothing short of the current disneyland. My grandmother used to go to a bigger marketplace in nearby town to sell her home churned butter. The money she got from that sale was used to buy other household items.

And just this last sunday, I returned from office to home having had the satisfaction of successfully relocating the weekly bazar to an already planned marketplace. The demand to shift the market was there since from many years. A designated place was earmarked and a compound was built to prevent encroachment. Small platforms were built for vendors to sit. However, the execution was pending.

For my part, I studied the proposal & I found it was reasonable & doable.

1. Reasonable – The current bazar is a linear one along a main road of the town. Anyone entering the Warora market had to pass through that road. On either side of the road, vegetable, fruit, sweetmeat, spice vendors sat along encroaching the road and hindering the traffic. Add to that, there were few hospitals along that pathway. In the past, the movement of ambulances were hindered. It was also a residential zone. The residents were irked by the all day hustle and bustle of the market right in front of their doors.
2. Doable – With due diligence, proper procedures, careful coordination, I felt, the market can be shifted. There were legal and procedural issues which weren’t a big hurdle.
   • As per Street vendor’s Act, a place should be earmarked for street vendors before they are shifted. That place is already there. It just needed some renovation. The vendors should be distributed ID cards and certificates before relocating. We had already carried out the survey of vendors and those things will be distributed to them soon.
   • I had called the Town Vending Committee’s (TVC) meeting to discuss about relocating the marketplace. A provision in the act provided for inviting related persons to TVC meeting for a particular purpose. So I called concerned persons – President of Municipal council, the Vice President, Opposition leader, few other councillors, citizens to the meeting. As Chief Officer (CO) & the Chairman of the TVC, I steered the meeting focusing on couple of main issues – Facilities they need in new marketplace & the Date. Some facilities like Lighting were already there. Further they needed water tap, additional lighting, entry and exit gates, cleanliness, security (as illicit liquor was being sold in the vicinity). I agreed to all those valid demands.
   • Date was fixed as second sunday from that meeting day ie 29.12.2019. Most agreed

Apart from consulting all the stakeholders, we did announcements through loud speakers, put a banner, spread word of mouth etc. A main help came from the wholesaler. Since he the retailers were his customers, he had some control over them. On the D-day the wholesaler guided the retail vendors to sit in an organised manner.

I had talked to SDM and asked for additional police staff on the shifting day. I deputed the whole Nagar Parishad staff on duty that duty. And on saturday I just chillaxed. On sunday I left leasurely to Warora to oversee the execution. It was buttery smooth. Not much hiccups. The Additional CO was there, the Office Superintendent was there, whole staff were there.

It was such a pleasant sight to behold. The market looked beautiful. Vendors sat neatly. There were aromatic spices, sweetmeats, toys and what not. I gave some money to Patil, my peon, to go and buy some vegetables to take back home. Sunday well spent!!!

PS: Some lessons I learnt from the above exercise

1. Good planning is sine quo non for good execution
2. Take along all the stakeholders. Tackle the toughnets first. Here they were the vendors and their associations
3. Much of the execution happened before the D-day – announcements, psychological preparedness among vendors, customers and Councillors, meeting the demands etc