A shop in Cuttack’s old cloth market. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Jan. 31: The Millennium City is yet to get its much-hyped specialised cloth market complex. Though almost a year has passed since the Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) identified a plot of 15 acres at Sector 12 of Markat Nagar for relocation of the city’s cloth wholesale market, construction is yet to begin on the allotted land.

The relocation and new market construction proposal was endorsed at the CDA general body meeting in February last year. A project plan and a business model were targeted to be submitted within the next six months for approval of the state government. “But, there has been not much progress since then,” admitted a senior CDA official.

The plan for relocation of the cloth wholesale market was mooted after a preliminary survey indicated positive response from 85 per cent of the 227 cloth merchants of the city in August 2010. A new and specialised cloth market complex has since been conceived as a big initiative to address the increasing and ever-changing demands of wholesale textile in Cuttack.

Sources said space constraints for the growth of the old cloth wholesale market here had forced several merchants to look for other places across Odisha for expanding their business in recent years. The development authority also planned to retain the merchants in Cuttack city by constructing the specialised market complex.

“A planner, who was appointed for preparing the project plan, has completed it. It will be taken up for finalisation by the CDA at its next general body meeting,” CDA vice-chairman Rabi Narayan Nanda told The Telegraph today.

At present, the cloth wholesale market is located along the stretch of a road along Nandi Sahi – Jhola Sahi – Pithapur in the city. With 200 odd shops, the market continues to be the biggest of its kind in Odisha and caters to the entire state. But, space constraint has been a major obstacle to further development of the market. “With an annual turnover of over Rs 500 crore, the wholesale market has been an unrivalled cloth trading hub in Odisha. But, its growth has been stunted because of space shortage and local traffic congestion,” said Cuttack Cloth Merchants’ Association president Mohanlal Jain.

Jain, who also happens to be the general secretary of the Odisha Cloth Merchants’ Association, said: “Relocation of the present market to the proposed specialised cloth complex will definitely be a boost for it as it has a much higher turnover potential.”

“We expect the government to expedite the project. The association will soon communicate the expectations of the cloth merchants to the urban development minister,” he added.

The CDA vice chairman said: “The project plan envisages creation of better infrastructure and room for improved delivery mechanism for the cloth wholesale market in Cuttack, which has an estimated three to four times turnover potential than its present turnover.”

“A residential complex constituting of high-income group apartments to complement the commercial business also forms a part of the plan,” he added.