KARACHI, March 11: Like elsewhere in the city, encroachment is a major problem of the old city areas of Lyari and Saddar.

During a recent survey, residents of these areas said encroachment had become a thriving business involving millions of rupees and could not be run without the support of ‘highups’.

Considering the experiences of the past, they pointed out, it’s almost sure that the menace could not be controlled at municipal level until the authorities concerned took it seriously.

Several anti-encroachment drives have been launched in Saddar Town in the past few years but the municipal authorities faced a lot of difficulties to consolidate whatever the success they achieved mainly because they could not get the desired response from certain government agencies.

The survey of the main market places and shopping/commercial areas of Saddar and Lyari towns showed that the encroachers are still occupying the spots from where they had been driven out in the campaigns. They have been doing their business on encroached upon lands as if they had never been dislodged.

In Lyari Town, the situation has become alarming as encroachers seem to have been given a freehand to violate any law, rule and regulation pertaining to the roadside business.

The encroachers have not only encroached upon the main market and public places such as Lea Market, Sheedi Village Road and Haat Chowk, but also the footpaths of school buildings, hospitals and any space lying vacant. So much so that they have occupied the surface of storm-water drains to raise illegal structures. One such example is Madina Market and Pitured Road Nullah.

Since encroachers have been occupying the footpaths along the boundaries of schools and hospitals by establishing workshops and installing billboards of various sizes, schoolchildren, patients and their visitors, pedestrians and commuters have been facing great trouble in finding excess to the schools and hospitals. Apart from the footpaths, the encroachers have occupied a wide portion of adjacent road and main gates of the institutions by parking their vehicles.

Government schools along the Chakiwara, Juna Kumharwara and Shah Latif Bhitai roads, colleges like Lyari Degree College and Abdullah Haroon College, besides Lyari Technical Institute, are among the institutions worst affected by the illegal parking and other encroachments.

“The encroachers are causing not only inconveniences and hardship to passers-by, but also traffic congestion,” Haji Javaid Memon, Chairman of the Lyari Rabita Council said.

He pointed out that the situation in Saddar was no different where an organised mafia was at work for long.