Shutters still down in many shops at Gandhi Market in Oddanchatram

Shutters remain down at Gandhi Market in Oddanchatram despite renovations, as traders struggle with accessibility and low footfall.

In May 2025, Chief Minister M. K. Stalin inaugurated the Gandhi Market commercial complex in Oddanchatram built at a cost of ₹21.25 crore under the Kalaignar Urban Development Scheme. The revamped market was to have a host of facilities, such as hotels, parking areas, banks, ATMs, restrooms, even rooms for farmers to stay in.

Yet today, most of the shops remain closed.

A few retail vendors, who have taken shops on lease, say that work is still in progress. In the old dilapidated buildings that fronts the new complex, a TASMAC shop still functions.

A few years ago, the Gandhi Market, located right across the Oddanchatram bus stand, served as a major hub, with almost 1,000 tonnes of vegetables being transported daily to various places within Tamil Nadu and other States too.

Located in a densely populated place, S. Senthil, a trader, said that merchants were finding it difficult to access it as the road leading to the market from the Palani road was narrow. The problem began to aggravate, and the area began witnessing traffic jams due to lorries coming in to pick up the produce and buses entering and exiting the bus stand.

So, when the proposal was made to renovate the vegetable market, the traders and agents, anticipating that they would be asked to shift, came together and formed a Oddanchatram Gandhi Market Vegetable Commission Agent Owners Welfare Society. In 2022, 17 acres of land was bought adjacent to the four-lane Dharapuram road. Now, more than 150 shops have been built in the complex and most of the traders have shifted there, says Mr. Senthil.