Click to play videoKolkata: Kolkata’s famous College Street, which is a 100-year-old market, is being renovated and developed into a book mall by a private party.
For this renovation some 1,400 shop owners have been evicted, but all of them have been rehabilitated and would be reinstated once the market has been rebuilt.
Success with the College Street Market has enthused the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to invite private players to renovate other markets owned by it, and Reliance has emerged as the top bidder for the Park Circus Market in south Kolkata.
Reliance intends to set up a huge agri-retail business in Bengal and it has offered to pay Rs 30.33 crore to take control of this market.
In return for rebuilding it, Reliance would get at least one-and-a-half lakh square feet shop space in it. And the company is so keen to take control of markets in Kolkata that it wants the Corporation to put all markets owned by it on the block through one tender.
“What's the difficulty? If any party is quite capable and has its own infrastructure, financial strength then they can do. It all depends on the party,” says mayor of Kolkata, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya is ready to explore Reliance's suggestion, but there's tremendous resistance to the company's foray into agri-retailing from Left leaders in Bengal.
A section of leaders from the CPI-M and its ally Forward Bloc refuse to give license to Reliance to start its agri-retailing business and they now propose to dispute the Kolkata Municipal Corporation's plan to transfer control of markets to Reliance and other private players.
“We will request them not to transfer markets in Kolkata to any private player because from behind these markets they would control the entire agri-retailing business in Kolkata. This is not acceptable to us,” says Chairman of West Bengal State Marketing Board and Forward Bloc leader Naren Chatterjee.
Reliance had earlier proposed to invest up to Rs 4,500 crore in retailing in Bengal alone.
It has since whittled down its plans for the state to overcome resistance from Left leaders. And though that didn't cut ice with Leftists opposed to Reliance's entry, the company seems to be confident about finding a way out.
(With inputs from Sougata Mukhopadhyay)
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