Khamla stands testimony to spirit of private enterprise

Resourceful traders around Nagpurhave come up with a novel solution to combat frequent power cuts.

When the entire city reels under darkness and students light up candles to study for their examinations, small islands of busy unauthorised vegetable and fruit markets glitter and bustle with activity. Private enterprise is at work here.

Take the example of Panju Totwani. A garage owner and younger brother of corporator, Prakash Totwani, he is the state electricity board for vendors at the Sheetlamata Sabji Mandi at the junction of Khamla and Jaitala roads on the Orange City's periphery.

Fruit and vegetable vendors in Khamla were forced to shift their business to this deserted area in February last year after an anti-encroachment drive uprooted them from below streetlights.

There was no electricity and the 'mandi' was at least half a kilometer away from the place where it grew over the years and bustled.

Few dared to pass through the market in the evening hours. A perfect setting for chain snatching and eve-teasing. Customers never came to the mandi after dusk and with civic authorities still considering it unauthorised, it was soon gasping for breath.

Then Panju Totwani happened and soon a local mini electricity grid was formed. Totwani says it was out of a sense of social service that he installed a 7.5 kw generator for the market.

"Earlier, the area was in dark and the vendors found it difficult to run their business," he said. Totwani is now also president of the mandi with 150 outlets.

Today, vendors have electricity at their shops and the area has got a proper look of a market. Incidents of thefts are down to zero and womenfolk no longer fear to shop at the market in the evenings.

Totwani said he put his own money in bringing the generator set from Agra, installing it in the market and setting up a distribution network which connected the shops. All this cost him Rs 35,000.

The shops pay Rs 10 per tubelight per day for the service. For two tubelights, the rate is Rs 15. The market remains open till 11 pm and for the time it runs, the generator consumes 10 litre diesel every day.

Totwani said that he earns a margin of Rs 50 to Rs 60 per day which is not much. "But I am doing this for social service, not for earning money," he said.

He wants to stress this point because someone charged him of profiteering from the business, following which he let it out to a vegetable vendor Guddu Shahu.

Totwani said the market has become highly popular in the neighbourhood and the civic authorities must regularise it.

Whatever his intentions, neither vegetable vendors nor customers are complaining. A large part of the Gokulpeth market, the Sitabuldi market and the Mangalwari bazar also run on similar arrangements.

Nobody in these markets is really bothered about the privatisation effort in the state electricity board. But ask them for the obvious answer. They have tasted the fruits of joint private enterprise!