Frankfurt/Calcutta: Mamata Banerjee iterated on Tuesday that the fire at Bagree Market would not have spread to the upper floors had the traders who operate from there not gobbled up every inch of space inside and indiscriminately stocked inflammable materials.

The chief minister, who is visiting Germany, said in Frankfurt that she had heard the fire at Bagree Market started from a hawker's stall outside the. But the target of her anger was not the hawkers along Canning Street or Amartalla Lane alone. She said the traders inside Bagree Market should take responsibility for what happened.

"I think if you are told not to store inflammable articles, then you should listen. Why won't you listen?" Mamata said, referring to traders who had encroached on open spaces across the six floors of Bagree Market.

"I would always want that the place where I am doing business is kept clean. I will have to see the security of those turning up to buy items from my shop, the security of those who are working here and that of mine are well protected. Kintu ekhane dekha hoy na (But here this is not taken into account)."

The chief minister went on to identify some of the items that came in the way of the firefighting operation. "The fire had been contained on the first day. But it did not die down because of the items that were dumped there...things like plastic items, nail polish and chemicals," she said.

In Calcutta, urban development minister Firhad Hakim said the practice of encroaching on available open space for commercial purposes would have to stop. Hakim, who had visited the fire-ravaged market on Monday, said the prevailing concept of turning toilets into storerooms and dumping materials on staircases of market buildings must be discarded.

"We need to change with the times. Dumping materials on staircases or letting out toilets won't work," Hakim said on the sidelines of an event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.. "We need to be more aware. Who suffered losses? Those who had shops there."

Two days after the Majerhat bridge collapsed, the chief minister had admitted that the presence of hawkers everywhere was an impediment to repairing some of the 20 flyovers and bridges identified as weak. On Monday, Mamata had blamed "hooliganism" for the Bagree Market fire, going on to explain why only half-a-dozen firefighters could go inside the lane, although 30 had been deployed.

Traders in Burrabazar said encroachment had become "a way of life" in the business district and would be hard to stop. "Encroaching on the passageways is a way of life for most traders, be it at Bagree Market, Nandram Market, Manohar Das Katra or any of the katras in and around Brabourne Road and Burrabazar," said a tarpaulin wholesaler.

Sources at Nandram Market said that in the aftermath of the 2008 blaze there, several big-ticket developers had approached the building's owner with a plan to demolish the structure, clear the area of encroachments and develop a business hub. Plans were drawn up and meetings held but they never took off.

"I told the developers that you might have a plan. But it won't work," Mainak Chand Sethia, owner of the Nandram Market, told Metro .