LAHORE, Aug 8: Abolition, under the devolution plan, of the post of magistrate authorized to conduct field operations for removal of encroachments has resulted in their mushroom growth over the past year.

Under the devolution plan, the city government is not responsible for removal of encroachments. The powers to organize and supervise the raids for removal of encroachments and penalize those resisting the effort have been vested in the town Nazimeen. Other pressing engagements hardly allow them time for this.

A town Nazim told Dawn he had written a number of letters to the government to appoint magistrates to supervise the anti-encroachment operations but there had been no progress. He said the town officials felt unsafe and were reluctant to undertake large scale operations. The absence of magistrates, he said, was a blessing for encroachers.

Over 50,000 encroachments exist in the form of stalls and permanently parked carts in Shahalmi, the Walled City, Badami Bagh, Naulakha, Mozang, Qila Gujjar Singh, Garhi Shahu, Dharampura, Moghulpura, Baghbanpura, Krishan Nagar, Misri Shah, Circular Road, Old Anarkali, Ichhra, Gulberg, Township, Amar Sidhu, Allama Iqbal Town, Yateem Khana Chowk and Multan Road Chungi areas allegedly under the patronage of the city government and Lahore Development Authority officials.

Shopkeepers routinely encroach on the space in front of their shops to display their merchandise. The shops are used primarily for storage. Many vendors find footpaths and parking spaces convenient and economical because the rent charged by officials of civic bodies is a fraction of the cost of proper shops.

The officials charge between Rs50 and Rs200 a day from a trader or vendor encroaching on the road or footpath depending on the market value of the area. Shopkeepers in Allama Iqbal Town’s Moon Market and the Karim Block market have sublet the corridors and parking spaces in front of their shops to vendors in connivance with anti-encroachment staff. Their customers, therefore, find no place for parking.

The Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore used to recover penal rent from the shopkeepers and vendors operating on footpaths and roads. The practice was discontinued in 1984 after the shopkeepers and vendors started using the penal rent slips to obtain stay orders from courts by claiming to be MCL tenants.

After the MCL discontinued recovery of the penal rent, its employees stepped in to turn this into a source of regular monthly income. An official of the anti-encroachment staff posted at the Jinnah Hall declined promotion because he was receiving around Rs30,000 per month from encroachers in the Anarkali area.

The budgeted rent recovery target for the ‘regularized encroachments’ exceeded Rs3.5 million last year. Another Rs8 million collection was estimated through imposition of fines. The income on this account has diminished following the discontinuation of raids for removal of encroachments since induction of the city government.

There were around 20,000 encroachments in the provincial metropolis in 1980s when the late Mian Shujaur Rahman, then mayor, decided to discontinue issuing penal rent slips and directed the special magistrates and zonal secretaries to conduct regular raids for removal of encroachments and impose heavy fines. Intensive campaigns to clear permanent encroachments were launched during the tenures of Mian Muhammad Azhar, the late Mian Abdul Majid and Khwaja Ahmad Hassaan and administrators Maj-Gen Mumtaz (retired), Afzal Kahut, Saeed Ahmad, Khalid Sultan and Tariq Shafi Chak.

The number of permanent encroachments dropped considerably as a result of the campaigns but the number of temporary encroachments in the form of vending stalls and carts and display of goods in corridors and on footpaths in front of the shops has increased. These ‘temporary’ encroachments are now proving a gold mine for the employees responsible for their removal. They receive rent from vendors and traders on daily basis and alert them whenever a raid is proposed.