Proposed market yard in limbo

BHUBANESWAR: The proposal of the Regulated Market Committee, Jatni, to develop a multi-commodity market yard at Mahura under Jatni tehsil for grocery wholesalers of the city is hanging fire due to lack of support from the Khurda district administration.Faced with the problem  of traffic restrictions on goods carrier, the Bhubaneswar Merchants Association had requested the Government for a wholesale market yard on the outskirts of the city.  A proposal was also  submitted to the Regulated Market Committee (RMC) in 2009 for a market yard near Jatni under public private partnership (PPP) mode.Accordingly, the Jatni RMC secretary forwarded the proposal to the Orissa State Agriculture Marketing (OSAM) Board for a wholesale market yard at Mahura under Jatni tehsil. The proposed site is 1.2 km from NH-5 and 3.5 km from Retanga station.The Jatni RMC further requested the Bhubaneswar sub-collector to identify  20 acres of Government land for the market yard. The Khurda district administration is yet to respond to the request.  This despite the fact that the Cooperation Department had written to all the district collectors in March 2009 requesting them to identify 50 acres for construction  of district-level market yards.There are about 70 wholesale grocery shops in the city and most of them are facing space constraints.The Jatni RMC has proposed 87 godowns of 5,000 sq ft each on an area of 10 acres and a truck terminal over an area of five acres.The remaining five acres will be utilised for internal roads and other infrastructure facilities like motel, traders information centre, e-trading conference hall, petrol pump, banking facility, cold storage, weigh bridge, grading equipment centre, electronic rate display, first aid centre, RMC sub-office, electric sub-station and a rest shed.While the terms and conditions for construction of the proposed market yard will be decided by OSAM Board, the traders have to share the cost.