Glitching clocks: Kamla Mkt sheds gains amid slow revamp

Less than a year after a 73-year-old clock tower at Kamla Market near the New Delhi Railway Station was restored, the giant clocks on four sides were each showing different times, with only one of them showing the right time, HT found during a spot check on Monday.

- Paras Singh

NEW DELHI:

Traders rued that the gains made in the restoration of the clock tower, under the first phase of a revamp that is currently underway, have already been lost, even as the beautification of the market is moving at a snail's pace.

Lakhwir Singh, vice president of the Kamla Market Welfare Association, said: "The clock started malfunctioning last month. The clock is running but it is not telling correct time in three directions."

With a layer of bricks on its parapet and cement mix on damaged exteriors, the market set up in 1951 bears some signs of repair work, but the work is ongoing at a slow pace. Further, the paucity of funds has also left traders wondering about the fate of the second phase of the revamp, under which interiors and corridors were to be repaired.