The Hindu : Karnataka News : `Raitha bazaar' mooted for Mangalore

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

`Raitha bazaar' mooted for Mangalore

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, JULY 18. A study by the local school of social work has favoured the setting up of "raitha bazaar" in Mangalore as a centralised facility or in different places in the city.

According to the study, there were over 2,000 local vegetable growers and vendors who came to the city to sell their produce. But the "feudalistic market system" was destroying them by adopting various tactics.

The Mangalore market begins functioning at 4 a.m. when the wholesalers bid for vegetables that arrive by trucks from other regions. By 6 a.m. the market is ready for customers who walk away with vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Amid the hustle and bustle, there is a quiet group of vegetable growers and vendors that arrives in the city from villages in Mangalore and Bantwal taluks with their produce. Customers wait outside the market for them and even before they settle down for business, the best of produce are in their bags for a little more price than the commercially grown vegetables. According to Mary Machado, a grower, Mangalore consumes 20 tonnes of locally grown vegetables a day. But the growers are not happy as they are always bullied by the market forces, which try to force them away even before 10 a.m.

Ms. Machado says that they pay a fee of Rs. 5 a day to the Mangalore City Corporation, which entitles them to use the market space. They are unorganised and are not able to bargain due to their economic inability to hire a shop.

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