Clearing hurdles: Anti-encroachment drive launched

15 vendors arrested, five truckloads of goods confiscated.

PESHAWAR:

The civic agency of the provincial metropolis on Tuesday launched a drive against encroachments on the service road of the historic Grand Trunk (GT) Road arresting 

15 vendors and confiscating five truckloads of merchandise.

The operation in which traffic and Peshawar Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials took part was carried out from Firdaus Chowk till Metro Cinema Chowk.

Vendors and hawkers protested against the anti-encroachment drive, complaining that they were not forewarned about the operation.

However, the civic body officials claimed that they had earlier issued warning giving three-day deadline to
the vendors who had encroached upon the footpaths and road.

The authorities demolished several illegal cabins and encroachments by shopkeepers along with confiscating carts placed on the roadside.

Peshawar Deputy Commissioner Javed Marwat earlier in a meeting had ordered the civic authorities to remove encroachments on the main roads which hinder the flow of traffic and pedestrians’ movement.

“We have time and again warned the vendors to voluntarily clear the encroachments.

However when they refused to do so, we had to take action against them,” said a PMC official, Jamshed Khan.

“We did  not know anything about the civic body’s operation in our area. If we had known they were coming we would have moved our carts somewhere else,” said a vendor Kalimullah Safi who was selling second-hand socks and winter clothes.



“They took away my cart and all the stuff on it, how will I feed my children if I do not have anything to do?” he said.

He claimed that he would give up to Rs2,000 as a bribe to the civic body officials to get back his cart and goods.

The PMC after receiving complaints from people regarding encroachments in the main bazaars and on roadsides at various places in the city has initiated a series of anti-encroachment drives for which the local traders’ union representatives had been taken into confidence, according to the civic body’s version.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2013.