New facility Fisher women waiting for customers at the two-storied fish market on East Coast Road at Lawspet in Puducherry on Monday. | Photo Credit: S_S_KUMAR more-in Nearly four years after it was inaugurated, the Modern Fish Market on the East Coast Road was thrown open to the public on Monday. The building had remained locked for the last few years because of disputes between the Fisheries department and the Oulgaret municipality over the allotment of stalls to vendors and the norms for selection of vendors. The two-storey fully air-conditioned structure spread over 37,886 square feet was built by the Project Implementation Agency (PIA) with the World Bank assistance of ?13.5 crore under the Tsunami Emergency Rehabilitation Project I. The complex was inaugurated by the then Chief Minister N. Rangasamy on February 19, 2014. According to a senior official, 43 stalls have been allotted to vendors on the ground floor in the first phase. Each vendor would have to pay ?50 a day for occupying the stalls. An auction hall for fish and an ATM would come up on the premises soon. No ownership rights The stalls had been demarcated by selecting vendors from all fishing panchayats and those who had been affiliated to any of the fish markets managed by the municipalities and commune panchayats could not claim rights. The market would be run by the Oulgaret municipality. The market includes an effluent treatment plant and a 10-tonne ice plant. The plant would treat effluents collected from the market and had been fitted with a 10-kV solar power plant to meet the requirements of the shopping area. The new complex was planned to cater to the needs of fishermen from several coastal villages in Puducherry. The complex has around 110 air-conditioned stalls, including 55 stalls on the ground floor, with cold storage facilities and separate areas for processing and cutting fish. While cheap varieties of fish would be sold on the first floor, expensive ones would be available on the second floor. Since the complex was big, fishermen from several coastal villages could sell their catch.

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