Shattered stall owners’ cup of woes to the brim

​Hyderabad: What left after the massive fire that destroyed close to 300 stalls at the Exhibition Grounds, is ashes, despair and anger as some shop owners had invested everything to ply their trade in the annual exhibition.

The shops mainly of clothes, plastic items and dry fruits were gutted in the fire accident. The families of the stall owners said their lives are ruined by the fire accident as property worth lakhs of rupees was burnt in the blaze.

They said that they had borrowed money from the financers for setting up stalls in the exhibition. They took money from financiers by mortgaging gold ornaments and invested in the stalls for their livelihood. The unfortunate fire incident shattered their lives and the Exhibition Society is not taking care of them. Women stall owners were seen weeping. One stall owner Ashok from Gujarat said he had lost Rs 40 lakh property while Bejanthi Bai from Rajasthan she lost Rs 50 lakh worth items.

Textiles merchant Ajay and his family members said that they escaped with their children as the fire spread rapidly and when they came back they found that they had lost Rs 30 lakh worth property and around Rs 25,000 cash was gutted in the fire. The same is the situation of every stall owner whose stall was burnt in the massive fire.

The anger of the victims reached to a peak as no arrangements were made from the society side in terms of food supply and other facilities. The victims and the other stall owners including women staged protest against the society for poor facilities. NGOs participated actively in providing food, water and other products to the victims and their shattered families at the Exhibition Ground.

The society members spoke with the representatives of the stall owners and convinced them that concrete decisions would be taken after the meeting of the office bearers in presence of the society president and TRS senior leader Eatala Rajender.Then the stall owners withdrew the protest.