The chairperson and councillors of the Pallathur Town Panchayat staged a sit-in protest here on Tuesday condemning the auctioning of the weekly market.
At the Pallathur Town Panchayat weekly market in Sivaganga district, 105 shops were already operating. Meanwhile, 48 shops were constructed at a cost of ₹75 lakh under the Operation and Maintenance Gap Filling Fund Scheme for the year 2025-2026.
A resolution was passed in the town panchayat meeting, headed by Town Panchayat Chairperson Shanthi, forming a six-member committee to directly hand over all 153 shops and 53 floor stalls to the old traders.
Further, it was decided to collect fees of ₹300 for fish stalls, ₹150 for building stalls, ₹100 for floor stalls, and ₹50 for small floor stalls, along with a security deposit of ₹10,000 per shop and ₹5,000 per floor stall.
However, Ganesan, the Assistant Director of Town Panchayats, ordered that shops should not be handed over directly to traders and must be mandatorily auctioned, thereby demanding the cancellation of the resolution.
Nevertheless, emphasising that the old traders must be identified and the shops handed over directly without conducting an auction, the chairperson and DMK, AIADMK, and Congress councillors staged a sit-in protest at the town panchayat office on Monday.
Regarding this, the councillors stated: “The town panchayat administration itself directly collects fees from the shops. Therefore, the town panchayat alone knows the details of the old traders doing business there. If auctioned, outsiders will enter. We have already been following this practice. Therefore, it should not be auctioned.”
Commenting on this, Mr Ganesan said, “According to the rules, shops cannot be handed over directly to traders; they must only be auctioned. There were continuous complaints that permission was being given to run shops without conducting an auction. So, I insisted on conducting the auction.”
Published - October 13, 2026 07:56 pm IST