It is Sunday.
The weekend market in Haa town comes alive. Hundreds of people throng the market. From grocery, to garments and vegetables the market has everything. Villagers from different villages come to sell their vegetables. Some of the local residents said because of the weekend market even the otherwise silent and desolate Haa town hustles and bustles.
“Haa does not have a large population. When many villagers come here to sell their produce, they buy essentials when they go back to their village. So, it helps us run our business. We even give them discounts,” says Dorji Wangmo, a shopkeeper.
Some of the shopkeepers take their things to weekend market. “We come here on Sunday since it is the only time for us to do easy business. The vegetable vendors after, selling their vegetables, buy our products here,” says Choney Zangmo.
Even for the villagers the weekend market has proved useful for them. “We don’t have to go to the main town to buy the essentials separately. While we sell our vegetables here, we can also buy our essentials,” says one of the villagers who had come to sell her vegetables.
However, a recent circular from Thromde has left many dissapointed. The Thromde has decided to disallow sale of other goods besides vegetables at the market.
“It is the shopkeepers themselves, who sell stuffs there and they are the ones complaining about loss of customers on other days. Therefore, we have already issued a circular to discontinue selling other stuffs there,” says the town reprensentative, Norbu Tshering. So far, nobody has paid heed to the circular.
The Thromde in the meantime says, they will start imposing penalties if villagers and other shopkeepers are seen trading anything besides vegetables from next week.
