After reimposing COVID-19 safety guidelines and intensifying measures to check violation, the Coimbatore Corporation has turned its attention towards T.K. Market and a few other markets in the city.
Sources in the civic body said the Corporation was mulling allowing only 50% traders to function on a day and the rest the next day as it done last year during the lockdown. The Corporation could arrive at a decision in the next couple of days.
Before taking a decision, the Corporation would engage with the traders to take their opinion and seek their cooperation and also consult with the district administration, the sources said.
The Corporation, on Tuesday, also held talks with representatives of traders from the M.G.R. Wholesale Vegetable Market and Anna Retail Vegetable Market to explore the possibility of shifting them to a school or college ground or another place where maintenance of physical distance would not be a problem.
After the discussion, the Corporation had decided to shift the onion trade to the Mettupalayam Road bus stand.
Sources in the market said the shift of onion business would ease congestion in the wholesale market as it was onion at around 700 tonnes a day that occupied more space than other vegetables.
At present, tomato business functioned out of the bus stand.
The sources said the Corporation was looking at the old dump yard in Eru Company, at the junction of Sanganoor Road-Mettupalayam Road, as a possible alternative location for either the wholesale or retail market.
Likewise at those markets and the one on Ramar Kovil Street in Ukkadam, the Corporation had also planned to ask the traders to regulate the entry and exit of customers so that at the entry point, they could be screened for temperature, given sanitisers and checked for mask, the sources added.
In a related development, the Corporation slapped ₹ 10,000 fine on traders and customers at T.K. Market and Ramar Kovil Street market.