November 20, 2002	Wednesday	Ramazan 14, 1423

KARACHI, Nov 19: Following in the footsteps of a former administrator of the defunct KMC, who had legitimized business on footpaths, Nazimeen of certain town administrations have also been patronizing such land-grabbers by providing legal cover to the food stalls and shops raised on footpaths.

As the footpaths are meant exclusive for pedestrians, there can be no excuse or justification acceptable for the permission being granted to land-grabbers who deprive general public of their right to use the pavements.

The former KMC administrator had permitted a lot of shopkeepers to run their business of barbecues, fast food and general items on footpaths on payment of ‘land use charges’. The traders, after paying the nominal amount to the defunct KMC, had taken it for granted that the entire space in and around the stalls allotted to them could be annexed without violating any rule, regulation or law of the land. Besides asserting their ‘ownership’ of the stalls, they most often bring in tables, chairs and other furniture and paraphernalia to occupy as much space as they can around their stalls and thus leaving almost no space on footpaths for people other than their customers.

A similar situation can be witnessed now on the footpaths at Karimabad, in front of Meena Bazaar and Bazaar-i-Faisal, where a number of big perfectly-built stalls have been brought in.

The ultimate sufferers are pedestrians, mainly women and children, who often indulge in altercations with the stall holders after failing to find a way to pass through. The indirectly affected also are the nearby shopkeepers who have invested a lot of money in their business but lose customers to the stall holders at the doorsteps of their shops. And those responsible for their daily losses are not only the stall holders but also the ‘authority’ which has been patronizing the ‘customer snatchers’.

Like the former administrator, the Nazimeen have also restricted their approach to the petty earnings for their respective towns and ignoring the immense problems they are letting the stall holders cause to the general public.

Without realizing the adverse effects of the undesired footpath business, the Gulberg Town administration has gone the extra mile for the stall holders by contemplating a scheme — hawkers’ zone — under which no less than 175 kiosks, made up of steel, have been lined up along the footpaths of Meena Bazaar and Bazaar-i-Faisal. Selection of these particular footpaths is understandable as they usually remain crowded by pedestrians, most of them shoppers.

The town administration seems to have become an ‘enterprise’ having undertaken sale of durable shops-with-space within a potential market and offering a reasonable rate of Rs100,000 per shop to be paid in four equal instalments. The administration has already fixed the ‘business target’ at Rs17.5 million.

Some of the city government officials, so far unaware of the situation, have now come out with strong opposition to the Gulberg Town administration’s selfish approach terming the permission for the footpath business ‘illegal and unjust’. They have taken the stand that the establishment of ready-made shops/stalls or raising of such structures on the public property (footpaths) is violation of land rules. They have cited the enormous problems being created for the pedestrians to support their stand and made it clear that the land control falls in the jurisdiction of the city government and not the town administration. They have also pointed out that the hawkers’ zone scheme is bound to encourage land-grabbers and encroachers as well as illegal trading not only in the specific area but also throughout the city which houses a lot of markets, bazaars, shopping malls and other similar spots.

Criticizing the legalization of footpath business, the city government officials say that those involved in such practices would tend to occupy more and more footpaths in the city in the hope of getting their illegal occupation of public property regularized. This trend, they contend, may ultimately help jungle law to prevail and flourish in the entire metropolis.

The most surprising aspect of the whole affair is that the Gulberg Town administration has not even bothered to get the hawkers’ zone scheme approved by any competent authority, as some officials in the city government have confirmed. If accepted as a ‘doctrine of necessity’, the scheme would become a ‘model project’ for the administrations of other towns, they observe calling for an immediate action to check the menace.

RISK FACTOR: Owing to the congestion resulting from the installation of the ready-made shops and stalls, the pedestrians have to adopt the alternative pavement — obviously roads — risking traffic accidents. Being the main intersection providing a junction for the traffic from and to the Super Highway, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Liaquatabad, North Nazimabad, F. B. Area and several other areas, the Karimabad roundabout often remains busy with speedy vehicles. Thus, a constant movement of people stepping down the roads at this spot either results in accidents or frequent traffic jams.

This is the same place where a bus had earlier this year run over a group of girls, waiting in a queue for transport after attending their college nearby. Two of the victims had lost their lives and many others suffered injuries. The accident had also created a public uproar culminating in a law and order situation.

Due to the existence of the women-only Meena Bazaar, several girls schools and a women collage, a number of primary and secondary schools, ladies cloth markets, maternity homes and hospitals, women vocational institutes — all within the Karimabad vicinity — most of the pedestrians are women and children often found stranded or trapped in traffic mess.

The affected shopkeepers of different markets at Karimabad, while narrating their ordeal of their lost business, pointed out that if the competent authorities did not take notice of the illegal parallel business, it would lead to more drastic consequences for the general public than the genuine shopkeepers of the markets. Furthermore, they warned, the Karimabad markets’ footpaths would meet the same fate as that of Jamia Cloth Market where footpaths had completely vanished.

Residents of the area, also concerned over the situation, observed that the footpaths adjacent to the Haidary Market in North Nazimabad and Urdu Bazaar had also been occupied by the greedy shopkeepers but the City Nazim had promptly ordered an inquiry into at least one case, Urdu Bazaar, about a year ago. They urged the City government to make public the findings of the inquiry and take action against the culprits involved in raising shops on footpaths illegally.