Congress, SAD trade charges as vendors’ wait for sites continues

Ludhiana: Congress MLA Sanjay Talwar and former SAD MLA from east constituency Ranjit Singh Dhillon had heated exchanges once again over the issue of alleged overcharging in the main vegetable market on Monday. This happened after vegetable vendors went on strike and staged a protest.
Dhillon alleged that the Congress government had become a mute spectator instead of taking action against contractors. On the other hand, Talwar alleged that vendors were on strike after they were instigated by Dhillon.

The Congress MLA claimed that they were about to put yellow lines in place in the market to ensure designated space to the vendors for avoiding overcharging but claimed that Dhillon instigated them to go on strike.

However, Dhillon refuted the allegations and claimed that the strike had started early in the morning and he only joined them to extend support. The vendors neither purchased the vegetables from agents nor sold them in the market. From the last four days, the issue is being highlighted by vendors and SAD leaders. Dhillon claimed that he had questioned the allotment of the contract to a private contractor by the Mandi Board in August 2018 and had raised doubts saying that the contractor was overcharging the vendors.

He claimed that the contractor was given Rs 8 crore while only Rs 5.40 crore could be recovered from vendors in the form of fee. To shorten this gap, the contractor was charging more money from the vendors and even threatened them, he said. Talwar said it was to end this issue forever they were in the favour of drawing yellow lines for allocating 48 sq ft area to each vendor.

He alleged that some of the Akali leaders were generating income from the vegetable market which was why they were encouraging a strike.