KMC identifies 85,000-sq ft Park Circus Maidan plot for market shift
Times of India | 27 April 2025
Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) market department has identified an 85,000 sq ft area at Park Circus Maidan for the rehabilitation of Park Circus market traders.
The KMC is set to redevelop the 77-year-old structure. The KMC market department will need to set up makeshift stalls for the traders at the maidan, for which Rs 6 crore has been sanctioned, said a KMC official.
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The market was declared unsafe after a chunk of concrete from the second-floor parapet collapsed, leaving a shopper injured in July 2022. Meanwhile, the traders so far refused to budge from the present market. After the matter was passed at the mayor-in-council meeting last year, a delegation comprising KMC officials and traders from Park Circus market visited Park Circus Maidan five months ago. At the MIC meeting held last year, a proposal was passed to demolish and reconstruct the existing market. A decade and a half ago, Reliance Retail proposed a joint development of the market, but that fell flat as the 550-odd traders and vendors raised objections.
The proposal for the redevelopment of the market was revived shortly after the accident in 2022. Inspection and structure tests carried out by KMC building department engineers found the market prone to more such incidents. Traders, too, acknowledge that parts of the market are extremely dilapidated. However, a section of them is still unwilling to be rehabilitated, even temporarily, to Park Circus Maidan due to fears of loss in business and insisted that they be accommodated someplace nearby. The civic body has been unable to find an alternative site in the vicinity.
In October 2023, KMC even offered an incentive scheme to the traders of the Park Circus market to encourage them to shift to Park Circus Maidan so that the civic body could start a redevelopment project. As part of the scheme, the civic body offered to waive 50% of the stall rent for traders who agreed to shift. But this, too, failed to convince traders.
Mayor Firhad Hakim even warned the traders that they would be held responsible if an accident happened. "We have told the traders that we will complete the reconstruction at the earliest," the mayor said. " It remains to be seen if the traders are ready to accept the shifting proposal as the reconstruction won't be complete before 2028," said a member of the Park Circus Market Traders Association.