October 1, 2007	Monday	Ramazan 18, 1428

KARACHI, Sept 30: Rampant encroachment, which has become a thriving business in and around the Lea Market area, has turned the entire locality into a complete mess where encroachers have been occupying every open space meant for the movement of pedestrians and vehicles.

While the hectic trade and transport activity over the past few decades has made the market area a “commercial jungle”, the transport mafia has been occupying much of its surrounding areas and using them as terminals for their upcountry buses.
The intersections, the main and link roads and the footpaths in and around the market are under the occupation of hawkers, vendors and transporters.

Residents of the localities around the market, in a recent survey, complained that they had to face great hardship in passing through the market area because of the traffic chaos which prevailed during the morning and evening peak hours every day.

The transporters always parked their vehicles in the middle of the roads only to create gridlock many times during the day.

They said they had repeatedly complained to the police about the illegal activities of the encroachers and violation of traffic rules by these transporters by the police never appeared ready to take action against them. They alleged that the police were hand in glove with these unscrupulous elements.

They said that the transport mafia was mainly responsible for the increasing congestion in the whole area, where buses were parked in a big number for lifting or dropping passengers coming from or proceeding to the interior of Sindh or a destination in some other province.

Almost every building around Lea Market had a warehouse or some sort of storage facility on its ground floor, they pointed out, adding that a large number of goods trucks shuttled all the day to load or unload the cargo. This, they added, had aggravated the congestion in the whole area.