Mumbai: Around 350 shopkeepers outside the Professor Dadasaheb Khamkar Mandai Vyapari market at Lower Parel will down their shutters on Wednesday in protest of the market department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation that has asked them to shift back to the Dadasaheb Khamkar market, failing which, it has threatened to shift them to Mahul, Kandivli, or other distant suburbs.
“We have been doing business here for last 40 years, but now civic authorities are threatening to shift us to Mahul. Moreover, the BMC is not giving any notice that the market will be shifted for repair work of the Lower Parel bridge,” said a shopkeeper.
The shopkeepers have been refusing to go back to the market. Shopkeepers claimed that the Dadasaheb Khamkar market has no ventilation and is in a dilapidated state. We fear for our lives and that is why we have begun setting up shop outside the market. Instead of repairing this market, officials are threatening to relocate us,” said another shopkeeper.