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Canal beautification spells bane for book sellers
Canal beautification spells bane for book sellers. The canal beautification project has come as a bane to about 30 second hand bookshop owners at Lenin Centre as they face a displacement threat.
The canal beautification project has come as a bane to about 30 second hand bookshop owners at Lenin Centre as they face a displacement threat. The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) had already served notices to owners of these bookshops and readymade garment shops who have been doing business at the landmark for quite a long time.
Challenging the VMC directive, garment shop owners have moved the High Court and got a stay order. The bookshop owners are yet to act in this regard. Students throng to these bookshops as it stocks study material for various competitive examinations and is being sold at lesser prices.
The bookshop owners are ready to vacate the canal bund if they are provided an alternative. Narra Jaganmohan Rao, owner of Popular Book Store, said, “We welcome the canal beautification project. It is the responsibility of the VMC to show us an alternative place before removing our bookshops on the canal bund. Otherwise, we will be displaced and deprived of our livelihood. The bookshops are also providing indirect employment to many people.’’
G Krishna of Lalitha Book Centre added, “We have no objection to vacate the place if an alternative is shown to us to continue our business. Earlier, there were proposals to shift the bookshops to a place near Ansari Park at Besant Road and Brahmanandam Complex on Eluru Road. Ansari Park is not at all a suitable place to relocate the bookshops as it faces water logging problem. Central MLA Bonda Umamaheswara Rao promised to do justice to us if we were evacuated from the place for the canal beautification. But there has been no further information about provision of alternative place to us.”
J Harish, a student, said, “It’s not just students, scores of job aspirants preparing for competitive examinations from neighbouring districts come to this landmark place for study material, model papers and coaching manuals. If it is inevitable to evacuate the bookshop owners from this place for the canal beautification, the VMC should show them an alternative site. Otherwise, the bookshop owners will be robbed of their livelihood.” Meanwhile, the bookshop owners are planning to meet top officials in the municipal administration department seeking a solution to the displacement problem.
