Hyderabad: The ‘Night Bazaar’ at Shilparamam has been temporarily closed due to a dispute between the tourism department and traders over arrears of rent, power bills and maintenance.
When traders did not respond to several notices, Shilparamam officials disconnected power supply to the stalls on Friday. Since then only six of the 67 stalls, which had paid up, are functioning.
Shilparamam general manager S. Kishan Das said that the contract with traders ran out in 2014 and the government tried to reallocate the shops. The traders unsuccessfully moved the High Court.
The traders began paying rent but approached the city civil court and secured two status quo orders which ran out in June.
So far, the defaulters have run up arrears of about Rs 95 lakh towards rent. Only six traders are paying rent, he said. He said the traders have been offered the facility of paying rent in instalments.
