SHILLONG: While lockdown restrictions in Meghalaya are being gradually lifted to enable resumption of trade and commerce, the state’s biggest market, Iewduh or Bara Bazar, may not find early favour with the government because there are no effect ways to enforce essential health protocols.
Although at one point the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council had taken initiative for its reopening and the matter had figured in the State Assembly, everybody seems to have developed cold feet after assessing the ground realities.
Informed circles believe that it will be extremely difficult to regulate entry and exit of customers since Iewduh has over two dozen openings.
The biggest concern is that there is no way social distancing can be ensured in the busy market.
Once opened unregulated like pre-COVID days, it would open the flood gate for thousands of buyers and sellers to throng the market.
Iewduh’s large number of unorganised hawkers who sit on the narrow passages criss-crossing the traditional market, are also a major concern.
So far, it seems, there is no satisfactory solution to these critical problems which have delayed an official decision for its reopening.
The state government has repeatedly said that it was awaiting a green signal from the KHADC and the Syiem of Mylliem under whose administrative control lies the entire Iewduh.
The Syiem of Mylliem and KHADC in the last meeting, had advised the state government against reopening of Iewduh for now.
It is estimated that Iewduh has some 5000 small and medium stalls dealing in all essential items.
Iewduh has been a one-stop place for the retail traders from both urban and rural areas to pick up goods on a weekly basis.
Besides, a few thousand consumers descend on the market every day. The selling price at Iewduh is the most competitive in the entire town.
