Encroachments intact despite campaigns

LAHORE

Repeated drives of City District Government Lahore and its allied organisations have failed to clear busy city roads from temporary encroachments, which continued to block the roads, sideways and footpaths at majority of the commercial centres and busy markets across the provincial capital.

These encroachments are causing serious inconvenience to the citizens besides interrupting traffic flow. So far erecting a temporary encroaching on any city road or outside commercial centres is not a big deal and one can have it by just ‘paying the concerned’. 

Majority of the encroachers are those who are selling different edibles, fruits and other products. Quality of their edibles like shwarma, samosa, fruit chaat and burger is another big issue as so far no direct action had been launched against roadside food vendors.

Despite all campaigns temporary encroachments are still on roads. Secondly, the CDGL also started distributing model carts to street vendors, which should be stationed at designated places. This step was taken to reduce temporary encroachments as well as to bring in conformity among the carts across the city.

One can witness a large number of fruit sellers using donkey carts at Chowk Jain Mandir. These carts are a major cause of traffic blockage in this area where construction work of metro orange lane is under process and the roads are already under massive stress.

Similarly, illegal parking stands are also a big part of temporary encroachments across the city. All major roads such as Multan Road, Hall Road, Ferozpur Road, Jail Road, Allama Iqbal Town’s main road and etc are full of such stands.

The main road of Johar Town leading towards Expo Centre from the Canal Bank Road is also a classic example of showing power of the mafia behind temporary encroachments. Several vendors selling fruits have encroached upon the roadside areas while a large number of shwarma and burger sellers have also established their outlets on the road; 50 feet space outside G-1 Market, which is also on this road, is also full of encroachers leaving no space to park a car there. Several hotels have encroached upon this area by setting up their sitting arrangements.

College Road, Main road Gulshan-e-Ravi, Wahdat Road, Model Town Link Road, Faisal Town, Wapda Town, Raiwind Road, Thoker Niaz Beig, Jinnah hospital and other areas are best examples where one can find hundreds of temporary encroachments.

A senior official in CDGL claimed that absence of strict punishments as well as a clear policy on temporary encroachments was the main cause of this problem. He said temporary encroachments surfaced within an hour or two after an operation. The official said that another big issue was the patronage of encroachers by local shopkeepers and trade associations of various markets. He said this is why when CDGL, LDA or TMA starts any anti-encroachment drive, traders of that particular market came out to protect their ‘interest’.  Recently Lahore DCO directed all TMOs and administrators to run anti-encroachment campaigns in their respective towns and take strict action against encroachers.