Good old super bazaar opens doors again

Warangal: Long before the culture of malls, hypermarkets and life style stores caught up pace in Warangal, there existed a super bazaar called ‘Kalpa Latha’. The good old super bazaar, which earned Rs 40,000 a day at one point of time passed into oblivion due to various reasons about 16 years ago, will soon be back in business.

While the old timers remembered it well for frequenting to the market to fetch provisions at discounted price, the then young, who by now have already become old, recollect their memories of fetching notebooks from this very market. The cooperative super bazaar which started in 1962 with 1,640 members on the main road connecting Warangal and Hanamkonda was an instant hit catering to the needs of consumers with a range of commodities – provisions, general items, school uniforms, fabric produced by Azam Jahi etc. at fair prices.

The store even had a counter for selling liquor. With politics taking centre stage and aided by other factors such as financial problems and private market forces, finally the market slipped into dormant state in 2000. Later, the facility was reduced to a warehouse for handlooms department. Against this backdrop, Warangal West legislator D Vinay Bhaskar, who himself was a customer of the super bazaar during his childhood, took initiative to revive the supermarket with the help of State government. It may be noted here that there was no committee for the last 16 years.

Interestingly, the development comes in the wake of speculation that some realtors in connivance with politicos are trying to occupy the premium land admeasuring about one acre. Speaking to The Hans India, Vinay Bhaskar said “Although we aim big for the revival of the supermarket, there are umpteen numbers of problems to overcome. Firstly, we have to get a waiver of Rs 28 lakh dues which the society owes to government. If all goes well, we have plans to set up a petrol bunk.” We are also working on the idea of providing marketing facility to locally made cottage industry items, he added.

Signaling the revival, aptly the super bazaar resumed its operations formally on Friday with the sale of clay-made Ganeshas in the presence of Vinay Bhaskar and Mayor Nannapuneni Narender. Kalpa Latha Super Bazaar managing director B Sumalatha said “The plan is to launch a stall for organic farm products soon, besides a counter for the sale of notebooks and textbooks. Later, a generic medical store will be added.” With majority of members either no more or migrated to other places, the society obviously wants to focus on membership drive, she said. It may be mentioned here that Rs 300 is the membership drive fee.

Meanwhile, the new committee Vardhaman Janardhan (president), Md Shafi Ahmad Pasha (vice-president), Ambati Snehalatha, Gurrala Prabhakar Reddy, Mekala Ramesh and S Swamy, which got elected unopposed recently assumed the office on Friday.