Traders who suffered losses in the fire at Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) kitchen market are still in the dark about when they are getting temporary shops to resume their business.
Den Mohammed, president of DNCC Traders Association, said DNCC Mayor Md Atiqul Islam had said he would sit with the shop owners on Sunday, but the meeting did not take place.
When asked if the traders will go for any movement, the association’s secretary, Abul Kashem, said they did not have any such plans as yet.
“The mayor said he needs some time to make temporary arrangements for us,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday. “But we have not heard from them [the DNCC].”
Den Mohammed said the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) had asked affected shop owners to submit the estimate of losses they suffered because of the fire.
The fire, which engulfed the kitchen market, located near the Gulshan 1 roundabout in Dhaka, in the early hours of Saturday gutted 291 shops, damaged goods and assets worth around Tk100-150 crore, Kashem said.
Saturday’s fire follows another devastating fire in the same kitchen market in 2017, which caused a staggering Tk500-crore loss.
When contacted, Mofizur Rahman, councillor of Ward 19 in DNCC, which includes the kitchen market, said they had not yet decided when the work on setting up temporary shops would begin.
“We are going to build shops with steel this time,” he told the Dhaka Tribune, “Each shop will be 36 square feet in size.”
However, the ward councillor said the shop owners would have to meet the city corporation’s requirement for fire safety measures in the temporary establishment.
He further said in two or three days, each affected trader would be given Tk10,000 in compensation, while each labourer would be given 20kg of rice.
Traders were seen trying to sell the damaged products at discounted prices in the market premises on yesterday, drawing in a huge crowd of shoppers.
Masud Rana, who owned a crockery shop that was ravaged by the fire, said all he had left were some partially burnt goods.
“I am forced to sell a Tk500 product at Tk100,” he said, pointing at the fire-damaged crockeries.
Ibrahim Khan, another shop owner, said the loss he suffered would not be less than Tk15 lakh.
“I have no idea what I am going to do if they [the DNCC] don’t rehabilitate us. I have to either take a loan or shut my business down,” he said.
