Once thriving Vastralatha shopping complex, now lacks basic amenities
The two-storeyed complex, where more than 1,500 sta work daily and hundreds of customers arrive on weekends and festive days, has only six toilets; the ladies’ toilets are even fewer as no woman worked there when it was constructed
Once referred to as the ‘Second Bombay’ because of the vast options a customer had while shopping, the ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri Vastralatha’, a wholesale textile shopping complex in Vijayawada, today remains a silent onlooker of the changing times.
Established over 50 years ago, with funds from the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and the traders, the complex, built in the ‘G +1’ model initially had around 190 shops. With more demand from shop owners, a second storey was built. At present, the complex has 310 shops.
“In those days, retail shop owners from as far as Srikakulam and Chittoor would come here to buy textiles in bulk. There were no other wholesale markets here,” recalls Srinivas
Vijay, a former trader and the General Secretary of Andhra Pradesh State Textiles Federation. With the proliferation of malls, the complex started seeing a decline in customer footfall. “We cannot blame anyone for the changing times. However, we wanted some relief in rent payment and improvement of basic amenities,” he says.
He says that traders had repeatedly approached MLAs over the years for setting up a few more toilets. The two-storeyed complex, where more than 1,500 sta work daily and hundreds of customers arrive on weekends and festive days, has only six toilets, two on each oor; the ladies’ toilets are even fewer as no woman worked at the complex when it was constructed.
“As it is our business is not going well, yet the municipal body charges a high rent (₹25,000 to ₹30,000) from each shop. The rent was nominal in the initial days of the 1970s, but it was hiked later. The then Vijayawada MP, Lagadapati Rajagopal, had taken the issues, regarding the high rent and lack of amenities, to former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, but his untimely death halted the process,” Mr. Vijay says.
It remains to be seen if this time, the Vijayawada West Assembly constituency candidates from YSRCP and the NDA alliance, Sheikh Asif and Sujana Chowdary respectively, will take action. “We spoke with Sujana Chowdary and believe that he will do justice,” Mr. Vijay concludes.