Much to the joy of vegetable growers of Ugyentse Gewog in Samtse, the much-awaited vegetable market shed is finally complete and functional. It was inaugurated on Tuesday.
It took two years to complete the construction of the shed due to the pandemic. The gewog administration started the construction in 2020 to benefit the entire five chiwogs of the gewog.
The vegetable market shed for Ugyentse Gewog is located just below the Samtse-Sibsoo Secondary National Highway. It has enough space and can easily accommodate about 40 vendors. The shed also has public toilets.
Without a proper market shed in the gewog, it was challenging for the vegetable growers to sell their produce.
“Now that we have a vegetable market shed here, we can easily bring our produce here and sell them. Moreover, the marketplace is located along the highway. We are hopeful that people travelling along the route will stop by and buy from us,” said Tika Maya Ghalley, a resident of Nyimalung.
“We used to face a lot of difficulties in selling our vegetables before as we had to go till Samtse. Moreover, the recent lockdowns didn’t allow us to go anywhere to sell our agricultural produce. This vegetable market shed was also incomplete and of no use,” said Durgi Ghalley, another resident.
As per the gewog administration, the progress of the project worth Nu 700,000 was severely hampered by the frequent lockdowns triggered by the pandemic in the last two years. The facility was complete only last year.
“Despite having the facility almost ready, we could not make the best use of the market shed due to frequent lockdown caused by COVID-19. It had to remain idle for quite some time. Just like us, the residents here were also equally worried and questioned us about the progress of the works,” said Ugyentse Gup, Karna Bdr Thakuri.
The construction works of the vegetable shed were carried out through the community contract group. Unlike other vegetable market sheds, the Ugyentse vegetable market shed is expected to remain open throughout the week.
Besides improving the market access, the new market shed is also expected to encourage more farmers to practice winter vegetable production in Ugyentse.
Passang Dorji, Samtse
