November 24, 2003	Monday	Ramazan 28, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has regularised all illegal occupants of a flower market at F-10 Markaz and evicted those claiming to having the right to run the shops, a well-placed source in the Authority told Dawn on Sunday.

The source said those who had illegally occupied the flower shops were regularised by a former director municipal administration, Rizwanullah Baig, but it was kept secret.

The Authority reclaimed the shops after the court vacated the stay obtained by the illegal occupants but the relevant officers in the Authority regularised the illegal florists who then threw out the genuine people running the business in the market for over a decade.

According to details, the Authority was constructing seven flower shops to accommodate the genuine florists, when the Qabza group reportedly occupied the shops on September 23, 2002 and later on managed to get a stay order from a local court. The source said the officials in the DMA aided and abetted the land- grabbers to get themselves regularised.

The deserving florists told this reporter that the Authority had assured them that they would be handed over the shops soon after their construction. However, they added, the former president of the traders association, F-10 Markez, Malik Zahoor, in collusion with a friend in the CDA managed to stop the construction work and occupied all under-construction shops.

The source said the CDA had also violated the orders of Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench under which it was bound to accommodate the genuine flower-sellers.

In a plea filed by the two genuine flower-sellers, Rashid Ahmed and Iftikhar Ahmed, the court ordered that both the flower sellers should be accommodated in the new market, as they had been running their business at the same place for over a decade.

Earlier, the Authority had allowed some genuine florists to run their temporary shops beside the flower market but later on removed them from the area.

ILLEGAL BUS TERMINALS: Illegal bus stands are sprouting again in the capital especially at Faizabad under the very nose of the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

The sources said the Authority had failed to formulate a policy for D-Class (small) bus stands located in the capital as a result of which the illegal stands were springing up here and there.

They said recently an inter-city bus stand known as Jalal Adda had been established at Faizabad in connivance with the directorate of municipal administration, as no official requirement necessary for the establishment of a bus stand had been fulfilled by the owner.

Similarly, the Afridi wagon stand near Pir Wadhai is being run even after lapse of the contract in February 2003, the sources said.

They said the Authority had asked the owner of the stand to get the contract renewed but neither he was getting the contract renewed nor suspending the operations.

The owner of the stand is of the view that the Authority itself violated the agreement by allowing establishment of bus and wagon stands in the vicinity of Pir Wadhai as a result of which he suffered huge losses and, therefore, could not pay a huge amount to the Authority for a new contract.

When contacted, an official of the CDA said he had asked the owner of the stand to pay whatever amount he wanted to pay under the contract.

“Though the owner of the stand cannot pay the actual amount for the new contract, the loss and income of the stand would be evaluated and then he would be asked to pay the amount agreeable to by the both sides,” the official said.