Why don’t the municipal authorities take action against the shopkeepers for this encroachment?
KARACHI: Anybody who has gone to Karachi’s Saddar district for shopping will find that there is hardly any place for pedestrians to walk — and the reason is that the sidewalks are all encroached upon by shopkeepers who have placed their generators. What I would like to know is that does the local administration charge the shopkeepers for this use of what clearly is public space? And if that is not the case, why don’t the municipal authorities take action against the shopkeepers for this encroachment?
A lot of well-known banks also do this and as usual, the ordinary pedestrian has to suffer because walking even on the side of a road in traffic which is as bad as Karachi’s can be a serious health hazard.
Tasneem Zahid
University of Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, April 16th, 2012.
