A shed for the Maidan market or Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy Market — popular for sports goods — where traders are supposed to shift temporarily to enable the construction of the Esplanade station on the Joka–Esplanade Metro Purple Line is ready.

However, many traders are refusing to move, fearing they may not be allowed to return to their original spots.

An official of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), the railway agency implementing the project, said space for stalls is ready in the temporary shed. The traders can move any time they want, said a spokesperson for Metro Railway.

The new shed has multiple hangars with rows of stalls on both sides, separated by a
passage.

The negotiations with the traders are on, but the stalemate continues. The traders’ refusal to move out of the old market has already delayed the project, an RVNL official said.

“The construction of the Esplanade station on the Joka-Esplanade corridor was supposed to start in 2023 with a deadline of three years, but we have not been able to start any work yet,” the official said.

The Esplanade station will be a terminal station for the 7.75km Purple Line. It will also offer an interchange with the north-south (Blue Line) and East-West (Green Line) corridors.

Earlier, Calcutta’s mayor Firhad Hakim chaired a meeting at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters to end the impasse. But a solution has remained elusive.

The general secretary of the Dr BC Roy Market Stall Holders’ Association, Kishore Manglani, told Metro on Monday that the traders had not yet received any written assurance from the custodian of the land — the ministry of defence — that all traders would be relocated back to their current spots once the station complex is completed.

“It is a question of livelihood for the stall owners, their families, and those working in the stalls. We are not against the Metro project or the progress of our city, but we are concerned about the future of so many people dependent on the market,” Manglani said.

“We are only asking for a letter of permission from the Ministry of Defence confirming that we will be brought back to the old market. Some stall owners are poor and earn very little daily. We need assurance that their trade will not be affected,” he added.

RVNL sources said they had promised traders that once the station complex is ready, they would be shifted back to the Maidan market site.

The old market building will be demolished and replaced with a new one once construction is complete, a state Public Works Department (PWD) official said. The PWD had been responsible for the market’s upkeep.

In December, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha that the Bengal government had to act to break the deadlock in ongoing Metro projects in Calcutta.

Vaishnaw listed the status of the projects in a written reply to a question from Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee.

“Temporary shifting of unauthorised 528 shops at BC Roy Market on defence land is required... The state government has been requested to facilitate the shifting. Regular follow-up with the state PWD is also being done. Issue is pending for more than 3.5 years,” the railway minister said.

Manglani said the market was set up in 1954 and is one of the largest sports goods markets in the country.

“All famous cricketers of Bengal have purchased some cricket kit from here at some point in their career,” he said.

A KMC official said that during the meeting chaired by Hakim, the traders demanded that all of them be shifted together and not in phases.

RVNL sources said they had no problem if all the traders shifted to the shed at the same time.