Thiruvananthapuram: A building constructed at the Mudippura market for selling fish has now turned into a waste dumping yard. With the market lying defunct and no fish trade taking place, the vacant structure has gradually become a storage space for garbage in gunny bags.

The situation has sparked demands from local residents to put the building — built at a cost of several lakhs — to better use by strengthening agricultural market infrastructure in this largely agrarian region.

A similar fate has befallen another building constructed for agricultural trade at the nearby Thazhath market, which is yet to commence operations. With no functional local public markets, farmers in Mannadi are forced to depend on self-financing agricultural markets at Manjali and Enathu to sell their produce.

Across many panchayats, public market buildings now lie abandoned and underutilised, serving neither their intended purpose nor the local community.