STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: A thriving market was struggling to survive as roadside vending and doorstep delivery increasingly took away its customers, with long-time vegetable sellers at Guwahati's Six Mile VIP Market alleging that inconsistent enforcement by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) had worsened their woes.
The market, one of the older trading hubs in the Six Mile area, was witnessing a sharp decline in business, according to vendors who had spent decades selling vegetables there. They said the proliferation of street vendors around the market, coupled with the growing use of online grocery delivery platforms, had fragmented their customer base.
Dhanashyam Haloi, who had been selling vegetables at the market for the past 27 years, said the fall in business had been drastic.
"We used to sell vegetables worth around Rs 50,000 a day. Now, we can hardly make Rs 5,000 in a day," Haloi said. Despite the steep decline in earnings, vendors continued to shoulder fixed expenses. Haloi said he paid around Rs 1,600 as monthly rent apart from electricity charges and other costs associated with running the shop.
Another vendor said business conditions had deteriorated further after the COVID-19 pandemic, while the emergence of online delivery platforms had added another challenge.
"People can now get vegetables delivered to their homes. At the same time, there are many street vendors operating in and around the market. The customers are divided, and people naturally choose whichever option is easiest," the vendor said.
The vendors' principal grievance, however, was directed at the civic enforcement mechanism. They alleged that the GMC conducted eviction or clearance drives only occasionally, after which roadside vendors gradually returned to the same locations.
"Sometimes they come and remove the street vendors, but after some time the same situation returns," a vendor said. The situation raised a larger civic question: if established market vendors were paying rent, electricity charges and other costs while roadside vending continued to expand around them, who was responsible for ensuring a level playing field?
The vendors said they were not opposed to the livelihood of street vendors but wanted the GMC to regulate vending systematically rather than rely on sporadic enforcement.
With traditional market traders reporting a fall in daily sales to a fraction of their earlier turnover, the Six Mile VIP Market's crisis now puts the spotlight on the effectiveness of the GMC's vending regulation, enforcement and market-management system.
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