Nandaram Market traders at the protest meeting on Wednesday. Picture by Amit Datta

A month and a half have passed since the fire at Nandaram market was put out but the fate of the building still hangs in balance.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) is bent on demolishing the top six floors of the building, but the traders have decided to go to any length to thwart such a move.

The battlelines were drawn on Wednesday, with the traders deciding to resort to squatting, daylong sit-ins and a hunger strike to protest the decision to raze the illegal floors of the building.

“For four days starting Thursday, we will organise sit-ins in front of Nandaram at 6.30pm. From March 10 to 13, there will be day-long sit-ins. On March 14, we will go on a 12-hour hunger strike,” Samar Kanti Chowdhury, the general secretary of the Nandaram Market Disaster Management Welfare Committee, said on Wednesday after a meeting with representatives of other trade organisations.

Chowdhury also announced that if the protests do not lead to a “proper response” from the administration, the traders will stage roadblocks and paralyse Brabourne Road for an hour from 5pm, starting March 21, and call a Burrabazar bandh.

The meeting was attended by Burrabazar traders and members of forums like the Federation of West Bengal Trade Associations and the Chamber of Textile Trade and Industry.

Municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay told Metro that the matter was not in the civic body’s hand. “The court has said the sixth to 12th floors of Nandaram market are illegal. We have no choice but to pull them down,” he said.

Demolition of the unsafe portions of the building had to be preponed to February 7 after a concrete chunk from the 12th floor fell on a labourer, injuring him. The labourers engaged in the demolition have regularly met with resistance from the traders and much of the work is still left.

“We were initially told that only the portions of the building rendered unsafe by the fire will be pulled down. On Friday, when we went to meet the civic commissioner and the director-general (building) to ask for permission to restore parts of the building, we were told that the top six floors will be demolished,” said Chowdhury.

“Shops have opened up to the fifth floor of Nandaram and third floor of Kashiram, but with no electricity or water. The business is down to 10 per cent the usual amount,” added Chowdhury.

Bandyopadhyay, however, stressed that the municipality is sympathetic to the traders who have suffered because of the fire. “We cannot stop the demolition. It is a policy decision that has to be taken at a higher level,” said the municipal commissioner.