KARACHI, Sept 26: The city government is planning to renovate and auction the market established more than a decade back near Bizenjo Chowk in Chakiwara after launching an anti-encroachment operation there.

Thirty-two shops and an equal number of stalls were constructed on the ground floor of the market under a project launched in 1994 to offer business opportunities to the people of Lyari and do away with vending practices in the surrounding congested streets.

However, work on the project worth four million rupees could not continue and fell prey to bureaucratic hurdles and official negligence.

The project was based on the idea of income-generation recovery. With advance payments of Rs0.2 million and Rs0.1 million for the ground-floor shops at the front and in the lanes respectively, only the locals were eligible to apply for the allotment. The allottees were to make monthly instalments and pay the utility bills of their shops.

Work on the first and second floors could be initiated only after the collection of advance and monthly payments from the alottees of ground-floor shops and stalls.

Initially, the shops and stalls were sought to be auctioned but the bids were cancelled later on one pretext or the other. Subsequently, transporters encroached upon the market area and occupied the shops and stalls.

After much hue and cry from the area residents, the government re-auctioned some 20 shops on May 5, 2000 and recovered 25 per cent of the bids. But, all the bids were rejected by the competent authorities who were suggested that the market should be included in the list of markets identified by the government for privatization.

However, the plan could not materialize and the market project was left in the doldrums for the next five years.

When the shops were put to auction again after necessary renovation on June 6, 2005, hardly any of them fetched a bid.

Area residents attribute law and order situation to the poor result of auctioning while many others say the process has lost its credibility due to the cancellation of the previous bids.