KARACHI, Sept 20: The trend of illegally occupying service road and green-belt area of the VVIP Road -- Sharea Faisal -- by the owners of roadside buildings and commercial organizations continues unabated and yet go unnoticed and unchecked by the officials of cantonment board concerned.

Besides, the number of jumbo-sized billboards being installed on either side of the road have increased manifold, posing a serious threat to the lives of those passing through it as a portion of such hoardings could be seen hanging on extreme right lane of the road.

As far as the Sindh Building Control Ordinance’s provision whereby it is mandatory upon a builder to leave 10 feet open space between the road and a building so that the open space could be used for future expansion of the road was also being openly flouted at a number of places on Sharea Faisal. One such example is that of a building being constructed adjacent to a mosque, near Awami Markaz.

During a visit to the road from Metropole hotel to FTC Flyover, one would see that a newly constructed building of a bank has not only put up huge iron fencing at the edge of the footpath but has also included the green belt area in its premises for using the same for parking purpose. Similarly, a hotel had been using a portion of Sharea Faisal’s service road as its car parking area while a long stretch of the same service had already vanished following its conversion into green belt.

Describing the service roads `public property’, they said that on the one hand, the width of a portion of Sharae Faisal, especially from FTC Flyover to Metropole hotel, had already been reduced from four lanes to three lanes owing to either conversion of service road in to green-belt or erection of boundary walls of some buildings all along the edge of footpath and, on the other, the trend of turning service roads into private property of commercial buildings was going on unchecked.

They demanded of the authorities concerned to bring immediate halt to such illegal activities, or else the day is not far away when entire service road of this VVIP Road will vanish, leaving no room for its expansion in future.