ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: The first food park of the capital, inaugurated with much fanfare by the interior minister on Wednesday evening, left a lot to be desired in terms of management, innovation and variety of food items, visitors said.

Local shopkeepers claimed that in an attempt to patronize establishment of franchized chains at subsidized rents by renowned food sellers, the CDA discriminated against the small market players who had no influence to get the limited number of stalls in the food park.

In the small area behind the General Post Office, the authority had authorized establishment of 27 kiosks at a rent of Rs6,000 to Rs7,000 per month. The kiosk owners have paid a minimal amount, ranging from Rs200,000 to Rs250,000, for each kiosk as an advance and security deposit for two years.

The shopkeepers said the subsidized rents offered by the authority to selected food sellers were much less than the rates determined by forces of competition. The monthly rents in the capital’s main market centres, including the Blue Area, Super Market, Jinnah Super Market, Aabpara and the Melody Market, run into millions of rupees per month, depending upon the location of the shops.

“Arbitrary decision by the CDA officials prevailed to give kiosks to favourites without any transparent procedure for allotment,” a shopkeeper claimed.

The visitors also faced problem of parking their vehicles.

“In an already congested market place, where there is hardly any proper parking area, the CDA has made no proper arrangements for the visitors to park their vehicles,” Nadir Ahmed, a visitor, said.

Earlier, the CDA had planned to establish the food park in Blue Area, where major food sellers had established their outlets. However, the plan was shelved for the reasons best known to the authority officials, and instead, the food park was established at the Melody Market.

The 27 stalls in the food park have been established by some of the well-known food sellers of the twin cities, Gujranwala and Lahore.

However, those who were expecting to discover new tastes at the food park felt disappointed.

“The kiosks are offering food items that are already available in the city’s main shopping centres,” Saima Khan, who was looking for the new variety of food items, said.

However, some people noted that the food park had the advantage of providing various popular tastes offered by renowned food sellers at one place.

The food park has insufficient arrangements to provide shelter to the visitors in the city’s unpredictable weather.

However, for the adventurous ones, it would be a picnic in drenched clothes if they visited the park on a rainy day, as the canopies were too small to provide cover against rain.