A number of traders staged a dharna outside the Market Committee office in Sector 26 on Monday to protest against the installation of checkposts at entry points of the grain and vegetable markets. The protest is likely to continue on Tuesday. A memorandum had earlier been sent to Union Minister of State for Finance Pawan Bansal for taking up the matter with the Centre. It will now be sent to the Deputy Commissioner,Home Secretary and the Administrator with an appeal to do away with checkposts at the earliest. Devinder Singh Babla,chairman of the Market Committee said the checkposts had been put up without taking the traders into confidence. He added that while officials of the Administration work in an arbitrary manner,the elected representatives are not given any importance. A joint action committee,meanwhile,made an appeal to the Administration to take an early decision before the agitation spreads across the city. The speakers present on the occasion included Kamla Sharma,president of the state unit of BJP,Subash Chawla,president and leader of the Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee and Harmohan Dhawan,BSP convener. The UT Administration,meanwhile,in a statement issued today,stated the checkposts had been set up after they received complaints of pilferage. The release further stated that a comparative assessment of the average per day arrivals of fruits and vegetables in the market during the first four days of January,with that of the average per day arrivals in December last year reveals a marked increase. This happened after the setting up of the checkposts.
