KARACHI, Nov 26: The city government has finalized plans to streamline hawkers on notified roads and charge them for the allotted space to control traffic congestion and spread of litter on all streets of residential areas.

Traffic congestions and spread of litter by hawkers has been a longstanding problem in the city, which could not be controlled mainly due to collusion of the defunct KMC staff and the police.

These hawkers neither pay any tax to the civic agency nor care for any parking or no-parking area, causing traffic jams on main roads and narrow streets by parking their pushcarts.

Among the worst-hit town areas in this respect are Saddar, Liaquatabad, Jamshed town and Gulberg, where money minting by police, staff of the former KMC’s land department and even by some shopkeepers runs into millions.

Maximum number of hawkers on roads are to be found in Saddar town, Lea Market and Jodia Bazaar, where it becomes impossible even for a pedestrian to move around. According to an official of the city government there are about 5000 hawkers in Saddar area who give extortion money to three police stations of the area at different rates ranging from Rs5 to 50 each on daily basis.

Other main hawkers spots are nearly whole of Liaquatabad but specifically the main road, Gulberg and Samanabad in F.B. Area.

However, Gulberg town is the first to take initiative in this regard and a hawkers’ zone has been earmarked in Samanabad area.

Samanabad market for the last 25 years has been transformed into a big commodity place with a wide range of consumer items. Thousands of buyers from nearby localities are drawn here, however in view of popularity of the market a large number of hawkers and stalls had illegally gained foothold, which has flourished with passage of time.

With the approval of its council administration of UC 4, the Gulberg town conducted a survey and it was revealed that there were about 250 hawkers on the main Samanabad road who paid some weekly amount to the shopkeepers apart from police and staff of the civic agency.

The UC earmarked the area as hawkers’ zone where all the hawkers have to be on one side of the road and within the ten feet area allocated for them.

The UC is charging Rs1000 as a registration fee from each hawker, while the monthly charges are Rs500 and to ensure that this system works, the UC has hired eight unemployed youths to ensure that neither any vehicle is parked near the zone nor any of the hawkers crosses his allotted area.—PPI