Model Town residents complain about commercialisation

Unauthorised schools add to traffic and infrastructure woes.

LAHORE:

Illegal commercialisation has compounded traffic and infrastructure problems in Model Town, turning a once idyllic residential area into a crowded and messy something, according to residents.

Many residential plots in Model Town are being used for unauthorised commercial activities. Quite a few have opened schools and tuition centres. Others run beauty parlours, tuition centres, clinics or tailor shops. They all result in extra traffic woes.

“Every day almost 20,000 students and workers pour into Model Town from outside,” said Amer Bakht Azam, president of the Model Town Residents Association. “Hundreds of cars and other vehicles pick and drop these people every day. During school and office opening and closing hours, traffic is completely jammed.”

He said that illegal commercialisation had also placed an extra load on sewerage and the electricity system. The social life of residents is also suffering, he said, as they were uncomfortable with the outsiders. “They have stopped going for evening walks,” he said.

Rana Mateen, the opposition leader in the Model Town Society, the elected management body of Model Town, said that the society’s president was himself one of the residents running a business without authorisation. “He is running a boutique from a house and has refused to pay commercial tariff,” said Mateen. “His cronies are involved too. One has been doing it for years, opening 11 shops on his property. These shops even encroach on the footpath,” he said.

He said that the courts were also insensitive to the illegal commercialisation in the area. “High ups, even the courts are non responsive. Frankly, this is giving way to further looting.”

Mateen said that the management of Model Town Club had illegally erected a marquee on its premises, ignoring a stay order on construction work from the cooperative societies registrar. “Even after the stay order, construction work didn’t stop,” he said.

MTS President Col (retired) Tahir Kardar rejected the allegations, denying he ran a boutique from his house and defending his record on the matter of illegal commercialisation.

“I took over the MTS eight years ago when there were some 350 residential places being used illegally for commercial purposes. Now there are 112,” he said.

He said that the remaining places were mostly schools and government offices. “We have fined them and forced them to pay a surcharge on electricity. Some cases of illegal commercialisation are in the courts. Some of them have promised to vacate the residential areas in some time,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2011.