Trichy Railway Division postpones move to collect user fee from vendors in Ponmalai weekly market

 In the wake of protests against Trichy Railway Division’s move to collect licence and parking fees in Ponmalai weekly market, the railways division here has decided to temporarily postpone it for a month.
The decision was taken post a peace between the Trichy Railway Division and vendors on Monday in the presence of Trichy MP P Kumar.


A few days ago, the Southern Railway proposed a move claiming to tap the potential of weekly market by collecting vendor fee ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 1,000 from vendors for occupying the ground and parking fee up to Rs 10 from visitors, on a daily basis. Terming the move as unilateral, Ponmalai weekly market traders and other vendors had staged a protest for the past three days.
As the weekly market refrained from doing business last Sunday, a peace talk was convened on Monday in the presence of the Trichy MP.
“Railways management has agreed to suspend the proposal to collect vendor fee from traders for a month. We have reiterated our demand that the prescribed fee be revised as it has been cited as exorbitant by vendors,” the MP told TOI after attending the meeting.
The AIADMK MP added that a sum of Rs 10 lakh would be sanctioned from his constituency development fund to establish basic amenities in the weekly market.

Source