Litchi traders have gone bananas over the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s decision to uproot them from a place where they have been doing business for two decades.

In another 10 days, baskets of the succulent summer fruit will start arriving in the city from Baruipur, Chandernagore, Barasat, Kaliachak and Bihar. But the wholesalers who have been operating from Sealdah all these years have been asked to shift elsewhere this season.

The ban on the wholesale litchi trade in Sealdah is meant to prevent litter from accumulating on the pavements and roads. The order was issued last year itself, but the traders chose to ignore it.

With the CMC requesting the police to intervene this time, the litchi lobby has gone to court. Calcutta High Court on Friday asked municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay to be reasonable and provide the traders with an alternative site.

The civic authorities had met representatives of the traders on Thursday and proposed the Milon Mela ground, near the Park Circus connector, and Ramlila Park, on CIT Road, Moulali, as alternatives. The traders accepted neither.

“We have been doing business in Sealdah for over 20 years. The CMC did not give us permission last year for the first time despite we paying them Rs 4 lakh for the removal of litchi trash,” Nandalal Sil, a trader, said.

Residents and pedestrians have repeatedly complained about the stretch of road leading from the railway station to the Sealdah underpass and beyond being cushioned by a 2.5-ft layer of dry litchi leaves and twigs. When it rains, the road feels as if paved with thick layers of squashed litchi flesh. Students of Loreto and St Paul’s schools and Bangabasi and Goenka colleges are forced to trundle through it, sources said.

Mechhua is the principal wholesale fruit market of eastern India, but litchi traders have always preferred the area adjacent to the railway station. Being an unorganised marketplace, auctioning takes place right on the pavements.

The state agriculture marketing department estimates that over a lakh kg of litchi is auctioned daily in Sealdah for about nine weeks, beginning the second half of May. The turnover exceeds Rs 30 lakh a day.