April 21, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 14, 1429

PESHAWAR, April 20: The city district government has planned to further widen the Grant Trunk Road in the provincial capital.

A source in the city government Peshawar, pleading anonymity, told Dawn that a survey in this regard had already been completed and according to the proposed plan, portions of a number of houses and shops would be removed in the areas of Gulbahar, Nishtarabad and Hashtnagri.

He said the survey had been carried out long before but the work could not be initiated as some people had moved to the court against the possible demolition of buildings.

During a visit to Nishtarabad, a resident said that people would not allow the local government to demolish their houses, saying that the concerned officials should remove encroachments from the service roads instead of demolishing their houses in the area. He said Nishtarabad was a historical locality but was changed into a commercial area, making the lives of the residents miserable. A private university in the area, he said, had created problems as “it has no parking area and vehicles of the students and university staff are being parked in the streets and service road”.

The resident pointed out that vehicles of a private firm were also parked regularly on the road making movement of the people, particularly women, impossible in the locality. “The officials of the TMA, Town-1, are not paying attention to the maintenance of sewerage system, streetlights and greenbelts along the service roads,” he added.

Abid Zareef Khan, another resident, said the new survey for expansion of the service roads had been rejected by the people, saying that he himself had moved to the court against the city district government’s plan. He said some years ago, buildings and shops were removed for construction of service roads but it proved to be a futile exercise as the encroachers had reoccupied the roads.