Chandigarh furniture market demolition today: Before sledgehammers, steal deals

As the market opened on Saturday, a large number of buyers from the Tricity — Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali — reached there to get “good discounts”.

A Haryana government employee, on condition of anonymity, told The Indian Express that he purchased a seven-seater sofa for Rs 25,000 at a good discount. “The actual price of the sofa was Rs 35,000, but I got a discount of Rs 10,000, because shopkeepers are clearing their stocks,” he said.

Rampal from Kharar also bought a pair of wooden chairs for his home at a discounted price of Rs 6,000 instead of the actual price of Rs 8,000.
Sanjeev Bhandari, president of the market association, said, “We have been doing business here for the past 36 years, and are paying taxes, electricity bills, GST, etc. We are not encroachers… we are businessmen. Our case is pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In January, the Deputy Commissioner and the UT Administrator had promised rehabilitation, but now bulldozers will demolish our livelihoods.”

Shopkeepers claimed that there had been multiple occasions in the past when the UT administration gave them written assurances that they would be relocated.
“We had prepared ourselves mentally to shift legally by paying a rightful amount, but the Chandigarh administration broke our trust. We are businessmen, not land grabbers. We appeal to the government and the BJP to stop this injustice,” shopkeepers told The Indian Express.

The furniture market has 116 shops spread over nearly 15 acres of agricultural land on the busy road connecting Chandigarh and Mohali. The market is a major choke point for traffic, with no parking facility for customers. Visitors park their vehicles on the road, creating traffic snarls.

In 1993, the Chandigarh Administration had carried out a similar demolition drive to remove shops from the area, but the shopkeepers approached the high court and the drive was stayed. Officials said that the administration had purchased a portion of the encroached land in 2002, and they had been making efforts to clear it of all encroachments. However, the shopkeepers again approached the high court. The case went on for several years, and their petitions were eventually dismissed in September 2023.

Since then, the administration has made multiple efforts to get the land vacated. Several rounds of talks with the shopkeepers were also held, but to no avail. Demolition drives were announced earlier, too, but not carried out due to the negotiations between the shopkeepers and the administration.
The administration has been asking the shopkeepers to participate in the open auction of shops in the upcoming Bulk Material Market at Sector 56, but the shopkeepers sought assured allotments in Sector 56 instead of their existing shops.