4-Day Closure of Karwan Bazar
Traders to count loss of Tk 150cr a day
Bdnews, Dhaka
As the government has decided to close down Karwan Bazar, the capital's largest wholesale kitchen market, for four days during the two-day 13th Saarc summit, traders will have to count a loss of nearly Tk 150 crore a day as no alternative arrangement has been made for them.The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) has asked the Karwan Bazar wholesale market shopkeepers and other adjacent marketplaces to keep shut from November 10-13 to ensure stringent security for the ensuing Saarc summit, slated for November 12-13. The traders at the wholesale market said the closure will cost them Tk 100-150 crore each day while some 10,000 labourers and coolies dependent on day-to-day works in the Karwan Bazar market will become unemployed for the period. The DCC officials are also apprehending that apart from the huge business losses, a large number of people may have to face untold sufferings due to lack of essential items. "But, the DCC authorities did not take any alternative measure to ease the trouble," said a trader. DCC's revenue department senior officer (Market) Akhteruzzaman Khan said they have asked the businessmen of the markets and their associations to close down the market. "The DCC has just implemented the decision of the Home Ministry considering the security aspect of the Saarc Summit. DCC has nothing to do with it," he added. Admitting the fact that some 10,000 traders in the marketplaces and several thousand labourers and coolies associated and dependent on the markets will become unemployed due to the decision, the DCC official said. Every day, a huge quantity of goods and essential commodities come to Karwan Bazar from across the country.
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