Vigilance officials conduct raid at Rytu Bazaar

Vijayawada: The officials of the vigilance and enforcement, legal metrology and the agriculture market committee jointly conducted a raid on Rytu Bazaar located at Swarajya Maidan on Wednesday and noticed that nearly 30 vendors did not have the licences issued by the marketing department. The officials also noticed some traders are using outdated old weighing machines and cheating the customers.

Vigilance DSP R V Vijaya Paul said cases were booked against some vendors for diverting the best quality vegetables to hotels, restaurants and hostels after segregation. He said nine vehicles were seized while carrying nearly six tonnes of vegetables.

He said the vendors should not sell more than five kgs each variety to the buyer but some vendors were selling more than the permissible quantity to the customers. He said that the vendors at Rytu Bazaar were not allowing the buyers to pick the good from the lot. The raid was headed by Vigilance SP M Ravindranath.

Vijay Paul said that the officials observed that about 30 shops maintained by vendors did not have proper vendor licences. He said original licence holders were not selling vegetables at Rytu Bazaar.

He said licences of these vendors would be cancelled. He said the licences were given to self-help groups, Dwcra members, farmers, physically challenged and others to avoid middlemen in the Rytu Bazaars.

He expressed dissatisfaction over the poor sanitation at Rytu Bazaar. He said that efforts were on to develop Rytu Bazaars so that the common man would get good veggies. The legal metrology department officials seized 12 weighing machines, out of them five machines do not have seal and the others machines were showing wrong weights.