You may not have noticed it during your trips to the block market, but our shopkeepers are under a lot of stress. The corporation has hiked the rent of their shops — up to 10 times for some of them — and they were asked to pay up 12 months’ rent by Wednesday. 

The shopkeepers did not pay, have sought an audience with the authorities and are trying to organise themselves to come up with a negotiation plan. 

“The bills are dated February 20 and had a due date of March 20; not to mention that we only found out about the bills last week,” says Shyamal Kanti Roy, secretary of Bidhannagar Kendriya Bajar Byabsayee Samity, a collective body of Salt Lake block markets. 

“So on March 19 we submitted a letter to the corporation’s mayor and finance officer saying the notice was too short and the rates too high. We have asked them to discuss the issue with us,” says Roy. 

Ten-fold hike 

Salt Lake has 16 markets, with those like BD, CA and AB-AC dating back to the 1970s. Shopkeepers have taken lease from the corporation for different durations and renew them accordingly. 

The rent has slabs based on the shop size. Shops up to 100sq ft used to be charged Re 1 per sq ft till last year but the rent has now been revised to Rs 10 per sq ft. Shops between 101 and 150 sq ft used to be Rs 1.25 per sq ft but are now Rs 12 per sq ft. Those between 151 and 200 sq ft used to be Rs 2.25 per sq ft but are now Rs 15 per sq ft. 

There is no category mentioned for shops greater than 200 sq ft but the bills indicate that they too have been charged at Rs 15 per sq ft. Chatals (sheds) used to be Rs 2 per sq ft and are now Rs 5 per sq ft. 

The new bills mention that the rates have been revised as per a resolution adopted in a mayor-in-council meeting dated January 17, 2017 but vendors say a whole year has gone by without anyone informing them about the new rates. 

Wanted reasonable rise

All the shopkeepers spoken to said they were ready for a hike but not such a steep one. “Our lease deed says that every five years the authorities shall hike the rent by 10 per cent. But they’ve never done so. Why?” asks Rabin Roy, who has a tea shop and whose son has a poultry shop in GD Market.  

“We had signed the dotted line prepared for a 10 per cent hike not a 10-fold hike,” seconds a clothes shop owner of EC Market. “We’ll be finished if they implement the new rates. And if we try to pass this on to customers they will boycott us.”

Gourhari Pradhan, the secretary of BD Market Traders’ Association, says bills are not even generated periodically. “We have to go in search of the bills. Sometimes they come once in six months, sometimes once in two years. How can we pay a lump sum like this?” he asks.   

Not all markets are flourishing in the first place and those that are down in the dumps find no rationale for the exorbitant rent. “We have 82 shops in IB Market and more than 50 per cent have not even opened,” says a tailor there. “Some shop owners plan to open up post-retirement or think the shop will face losses if they open now. Such people are stuck with their shops. Will they pay 10 times the rent for closed shops?” 

An 18 per cent GST will be added to the rent too but vendors are not concerned about that. “Previously we had to pay 16 per cent service tax that is getting replaced by GST. This increase is reasonable but not the rent hike,” says Anup Biswas, who runs a mineral water and photocopy shop in CK Market.

Renovate first 

Corporation officials says the hike is to fund renovation, maintenance and to keep up with inflation. Some markets like BD, CA, EC and IA are indeed undergoing massive facelifts. They’ve got ceilings fixed, floors and walls tiled and toilets rebuilt. 

Other markets have long lists of complaints. The tin roof above GD Market’s fruit and vegetable section has holes and lets in light and rain. The ladies toilet door in CK Market is damaged and the walls have chunks falling off. Steps on the staircase are eroding too. BD Market faces water problems and the irregularity of civic sweepers has forced almost every market to hire their own. 

One of the most neglected is IB Market. “There’s elephant grass surrounding the building. The civic body has told us they will not send sweepers and the lighting is so poor that customers feel scared to visit at night,” says a cosmetics shop owner there.

The open space at the centre of the market is dumped with huge metallic fittings that no vendor has any recollection of and is home to rats now. “But the scariest is how chunks are falling off the ceiling at the entrance. What happens if one falls on someone’s head? We’re tired of asking authorities to repair it,” adds a tailor.

Remove hawkers, hike rent 

“Before hiking our rent the authorities should evict hawkers that are bleeding us dry. A higher rent would make our items even more expensive and customers would prefer hawkers all the more,” says Roy of GD Market. Nearby, hawkers squat outside National Institute of Homoeopathy and sell everything from fruits and chips to gutka.

The authorities have recently evicted hawkers from around Karunamoyee and the GSI building but CK Market, that is the nearest block market, does not seem to have benefited much. “The eviction has caused no change in our sales. The hawkers have simply shifted into DL Block and Karunamoyee complex,” says a fruit seller of CK Market, Jiban Sahu. 
Vendors also complain about malls. “There was no Big Bazaar in the master plan when we took lease of these shops,” says the tailor of IB Market. “How can they have a market and a shopping complex in the same block? Their inconsiderate planning has cost us dearly. Do they now want to fleece us?”

Way ahead 

Several glaring anomalies surface in this case, such as why the new bill charges GST from April 2017 when the tax came into effect only from July 2017. 

“It’s true that we have charged GST extra for the three months between April and June. We did it to simplify calculations. It was the board’s decision. If vendors have a problem with it they may write to the mayor,” says a source in the finance department. 

The bills say that the new rates had been fixed in a meeting in January 2017, so why were vendors not informed about it over the past 14 months? “We tried to inform them but couldn’t find them,” says the officer. 

He also concedes that the bills are not generated regularly but cannot explain why. “Initially the bills would be sent to the shops by post but the postmen started finding the shops shut. So now we don’t send the bills out anymore,” he says.
The vendors on their part are holding meetings to discuss the issue. “If need be we shall compare these rates with those in other corporations in Bengal and arrive at a parity,” says Roy, secretary of the concerted market association, who runs a homeopathy clinic in CK Market.

Devashis Jana, the MIC, markets, did not respond to calls.

Mayor Sabyasachi Dutta is aware of the chaos. “It has come to my notice that the rent has shot up drastically and that there are certain technical glitches in the calculations. I have spoken to the finance officer regarding them and will hold meetings to rectify the problems,” he said. 

Inputs from Showli Chakraborty

Does the state of your local block market merit a 10-fold hike in rent?
Write to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abpmail.com