LAHORE: A Lahore Parking Company (LPC) facility at the Civic Centre of Gulshan-i-Ravi is allegedly being misused by the contractor as a number of vehicles are permanently parked at the 10-12 kanal plot owned by the Lahore Development Authority.

The Civic Centre houses a cluster of marriage halls and the LPC facility is supposed to be meant for parking of vehicles of wedding guests. Worse still, the parking lot houses a number of abandoned vehicles as well. Adjacent to it is an auto-workshop whose mechanic has ‘dumped’ his vehicles at the parking lot allegedly in connivance with the supervisor/contractor.

A number of residents of the nearby block and flats have ‘permanently parked’ their vehicles with the ‘blessings’ of the supervisor. On the periphery of the LPC stand, one can see ‘vertical parking’ in two rows, leaving the road almost impassable. The wedding events are mostly held between 7pm and 10pm, but a large portion of the parking lot remains occupied round the clock.

Since the Civic Centre has neither any fast food chain outlet nor a shopping mall, the presence of a large number of vehicles at the parking space is incomprehensible.

The weekly Sunday Bazaar is held close to the LPC parking facility. The area is considered a soft target for any subversive activity. Following the Charing Cross suicide blast in February this year, the law-enforcement agencies didn’t allow the town administration to hold the makeshift market for five consecutive weeks till appropriate security steps were put in place.

The permanent parking of vehicles poses security hazards and causes a great deal of inconvenience to the visitors to the banquet halls.

The supervisor told Dawn that some influential people parked their vehicles here as their 10-marla houses didn’t have enough space to accommodate two or three cars and start bickering about the issue.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2017