02 October 2004	Saturday	16 Shaban 1425

KARACHI, Oct 1: The draft of the policy aimed at centralizing and streamlining the administrative control of Bachat bazaars, and to make them more cost-effective is lying pending with high-ups of the city government for the last one year for approval.

The policy draft finalized by the Enterprise and Investment Promotion (E&IP) department of the city government envisages reorganization of the existing system of weekly Bachat bazaars. The present system of the bazaars is being run in an arbitrary manner.

Official sources in the city government told PPI that in view of the approaching month of Ramzan, early approval of the policy was necessary for providing maximum relief to the people in prices of essential commodities in the city.

Under the policy guidelines, the CDGK had been authorized to grant or cancel permissions of Bachat bazaars, and to monitor and control prices of essential items at such places, the sources said. But due to delay in approval of the said policy, the bazaars were also being organized with the permission of town and UC administrations in different parts of city, which, in many cases were not serving the purpose of providing relief to the people, they said.

The essential items were reportedly not being sold at concessional rates at these bazaars due to lack of an effective check on the part of respective town and UC administrations by keeping the concerned CDGK officers away, the sources further said.

A number of illegal Bachat bazaars had also been reported in different parts of the city, the sources told and attributed it to lack of any proper policy to check these illegal bazaars, mostly organized by profit-seeking mafia or vested interests by occupying government land for the purpose.

The draft policy strictly prohibited holding of Bachat bazaars on amenity plots, but in a number of cases playgrounds were reportedly being used for the purpose due to a lack of discipline in this regard, the sources said.

The policy also covers location and number of bazaars, procedure and mechanism of holding these, their category, uniform rent fee, sharing formula of rent fee, issuance of registration and permits for holding bazaars on other land-owing agencies, temporary bazaars in Ramzan, monitoring and price control, besides provision special monitoring committee with specific functions and powers. -PPI