People living around Satmatha, the heart of Bogura town, are worn down by traffic jams. Every day from dawn until noon, fruit is bought and sold on the occupied road. Two years ago a market was built for Tk 4 crore at Tinmatha, on the edge of town, to ease the congestion. But one group of traders says wholesale fruit sales will be lower at the new market, and so they are unwilling to go there.

Every day at first light the fruit bazar comes alive with the shouts of buyers and sellers. The wholesale fruit market sits on Station Road, the busiest road in town. This fruit quarter has 39 permanent and eight temporary wholesale depots (arats), and on average Tk 2 crore worth of trade is done there each day.

The main road runs right in front of the fruit depots. Trucks and vehicles carrying fruit are loaded and unloaded on the road itself, while wholesale trading goes on alongside. The whole road is taken over by fruit traders. This causes severe traffic jams from Satmatha through the fruit quarter to the railway station and Tinmatha. Everyone from school and college students to office workers is stuck for long periods.

A fruit trader named Mosharaf Abdul Hannan said Tinmatha is far from town. Wholesale buyers do not want to go there, and vans and porters are hard to find. He said they would move if they were given a place nearby.

Trader Atoar Rahman said they would suffer losses after dark. Money is collected from wholesalers and the accounts are settled at the depots, and it is not safe to move around the Tinmatha area with that much cash.

The modern market at Tinmatha was built at a cost of Tk 4 crore with funding from the traders' association. It has a canteen, toilets, enough space for loading and unloading and other necessary facilities. Sixty shops were allotted against the town's 47 fruit depot owners. Of them, 31 traders took shops after paying advances of Tk 2 lakh to Tk 10 lakh. The market was inaugurated on 11 March. But because of a handful of traders, the initiative is failing.

A trader named Hossain has taken a shop at the new fruit market with a deposit of Tk 8.5 lakh. He said he took the shop with security in mind, and that he would lose a lot of money if they did not move there now.

Shafiqul Islam Arfan, senior vice-president of the Bogura Fruit Traders' Association, said a shop that rents for Tk 50,000 in town costs Tk 7,000-8,000 at the new market. If everyone moved together, buyers would certainly come.

Municipal executive officer Shahajahan Alam said the municipality is in the process of leasing out the new fruit market. Notices were published twice but nobody applied, and a third notice has now been issued. Nobody is showing interest in taking the lease because of the traders' reluctance.

Bogura's additional superintendent of police (administration) Snigdha Akhtar said moving the traders is the municipality's responsibility, but action on the traffic jams would be taken quickly.

Deputy commissioner Saiful Islam said steps would be taken to move the market. Traders will be sent letters at a set time, and if they still do not move, an eviction drive will follow.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.