‘Encroachment, parking woes scare away buyers’

City’s traders demand uplift of markets, road repairs

RAWALPINDI:

Encroachment and traffic jams have scared away buyers from the old city markets, said a delegation of traders in a meeting with the administrator of the city.

“The government should launch a campaign against encroachment and wrong parking to facilitate people coming for shopping at Saddar and Raja Bazaar besides other such old markets of the city,” The Punjab Markazi Tanzeeme Tajiran President Sharjeel Mir said.

He was leading a delegation of traders that met with the Rawalpindi Commissioner Muhammad Mehmood to highlight the abysmal condition of encroachment in the city.

The traders said that the condition of encroachment in Rawalpindi has taken a bad shape owing to which the businesses were facing heavy losses.

They told the commissioner that street lights in the inner city areas have been dilapidated and markets plunge into the dark after sunset. This leads to incidents of robberies, mugging, purse and mobile snatching besides motorcycle thefts.

The delegation members said that apart from street lights, the roads and streets have dilapidated too and required repair work.

Mehmood said that they would contact the Capital Development Authority (CDA) after the report of City AC. He added that Rawalpindi was his own city and they would take every measure to end problems there. The commissioner directed the CMO to install street lights on all roads around the markets.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2021.