Vendors shun Suryapet high-tech market, do biz on roadside
Suryapet: The integrated vegetable and meat market at Suryapet developed on a green concept at a cost of Rs 30 crore by the previous BRS government has remained unused, with vendors selling vegetables in front of the structure because of a lack of facilities inside.
Former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao inaugurated the market on August 20, 2023. The integrated market was constructed on five acres in the old agricultural market yard, in five blocks.
It houses 200 shops over w 2.5 lakh feet. The then BRS government then claimed the Suryapet integrated market was the first market complex in the country which was built with green technology.
Officials claimed that a special ventilation system was used for the market to maintain a particular temperature. German technology was used for a lighting system in which a 10 mm-width UV violet filter dome skylight was used to provide skylight to every shop during the day.
After the inauguration of the integrated market, 120 shops were allocated to the vendors. But the vendors’ dreams remained unfulfilled.
Vendors found the atmosphere suffocating, and the lighting dim. They returned to the roadsides.
Nanavath Bujji, a vegetable seller, claimed the officials had not responded to their complaints about integrated market. “We felt suffocated within a couple of hours after opening our shops in the integrated complex,” he said.
K. Ramulu, another vegetable merchant, alleged that the customers were not interested in coming to the integrated market due to the bad atmosphere. It prompted then to again sell veggies on roadside.
A customer said he was forced to come out of the integrated market in two minutes after facing breathing difficulties. The lighting system was bad, he said and asked the Congress government to rectify the shortcomings.