No Deepavali bazaar at Brickfields this year

Federal Territories Ministry says move is due to complaints that these traders are blocking entrances to existing shops, affecting their income.

PETALING JAYA: The Federal Territory ministry has confirmed that it would not allow Deepavali baazar to be set up at Brickfields this year.

Its deputy minister Dr J Loga Bala Mohan said the Deepavali bazaar, which used to be an annual attraction in Brickfields or also known as Little India, will be moved to Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman at Masjid India for an unknown reason.

“I will be announcing this soon in a press conference. We are still finalising some details about it,” Loga told FMT.

Deepavali Bazaar, is an annual affair at Brickfields but it became became a major issue last year after shop owners staged a protest against setting up Deepavali stalls on public walkways.

The shop owners complained that the stalls on the pavement blocked the entrances to their premises and as a result, their business dropped by as much as 60 percent compared to the previous years.

However, it was reported that more than 80 bazaar traders in Brickfields claimed that they would lose RM4 million from poor sales if they were moved to the new site.

An anonymous Indian trader from Brickfields concurred by saying that they would lose up to 30 percent in sales from the venue change. The traders also claimed that the bazaar had always been a tourist attraction and for that, it was operated for a month until the eve of Deepavali, once a year.

Some even argued that without the bazaars, the Deepavali spirit would be affected as their customers would think that they were no longer in business as they no longer operated in the usual venue.