Flower market shut in George Town

Chennai: The colour and perfume of flowers will no more grace Badrian street, which is just across from what used to be known a Flower Bazaar or Pookadai in George Town that used to handle tonnes of flowers arriving in the city.  Having been banished to the Koyambedu market years ago, about 130 wholesale vendors were still running shops in the flower market complex on Badrian street off NSC Bose road. As many as 47 of them were evicted Monday morning and asked to move west to Koyambedu and the others given two days’ time to go there.

Tension prevailed at the flower market complex in Broadway when the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), with the help of the police, sealed shops and evicted the vendors from their shops. Acting on a 2012 Madras High Court order, CMDA officials asked wholesale vendors to move to Koyambedu. 

The flower market was set up on Badrian street in 1999 after most wholesale flower vendors were moved out of what was originally known as Pookadai, which now houses parking bays of the state transport buses.

A standoff between the vendors and 25 CMDA officials, assisted by around 140 policemen, was ended forcibly with the government representatives entering the Badrian street market complex after downing the shutters and then sealing the individual shops.  The eviction drive had begun with a minor physical tussle between CMDA officials and a group of vendors around 10 am when the latter group was asked to close the shops.