Once thriving Vastralatha complex, now awaits basic amentities

Wholesale textile shopping complex in Vijayawada faces challenges with high rent and lack of amenities, seeking relief.

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 (VMC) and the traders, the complex, built in the ‘G +1’ model initially had around 190 shops. Gradually, 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 to Vijayawada to buy textiles from us in bulk. There were no other wholesale markets here,” recalls Srinivas Vijay, a former trader here and the General Secretary of Andhra Pradesh State Textiles Federation.

Gradually, 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 for the complex and improvement of basic public amenities,” Mr. Vijay says.

He says that traders had repeatedly approached MLAs over the years to request them to set up a few more toilets. The two-storeyed complex, where more than 1,500 staff work daily and hundreds of customers arrive on weekends and festive days, has only six toilets, two on each floor; the ladies’ toilets are even fewer as no woman worked here when it was constructed.

“As it is, our business is not going well, and it is not fair on the part of the municipal body to charge 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, both 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 steps. “We spoke with Sujana Chowdary. We repose faith in him that he would do justice to us,” Mr. Vijay concludes.