KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah has advised traders and shopkeepers to cooperate with the authorities in keeping environment neat and clean before necessary action is taken to implement the rules and regulations.

He regretted over the attitude of traders who fail to keep their locality neat and clean. They throw away waste and filth of their shops on roads and pollute the environment.

Some have converted parking facilities of shopping plazas into godowns or put up shopping stalls there while roads are used as parking lots, causing encroachment and creating problems in smooth flow of traffic.

The chief minister made these remarks during a meeting with a delegation of the Tariq Road Traders Welfare Association led by its president Aslam Bhatti. Other members of the delegation were Asad Towfique, Fawad Khan, Haroon Zafar, Mohammad Azam, Zafar Iqbal and Mohammad Mehmood.

Recalling that the Sindh government has reconstructed important roads such as Tariq Road, University Road and other main arteries which are hub of business activities, he said it was now the responsibility of shopkeepers and other traders to keep their areas clean and save them from encroachment. “But I have personally witnessed that traders throw away waste and filth of their shops onto the roads, though dustbins are lying there,” he said and urged the association to stop them from making their newly-constructed areas filthy.

Pointing out that most of the shopping plazas have converted their parking lots into godowns, the CM said: “This is unacceptable.” He urged the association to talk to their association members and others for opening their parking areas, otherwise he would have no option but to take action, he said. “I am going to issue directives to the new DIG traffic to open their parking areas and report me,” he said.

He also directed the DIG Traffic to revisit the areas where car showrooms are located and ensure no car is displayed on the road. He said the work on the road right from Fountain Chowk, near Governor House, to the Zoological Gardens and back from the zoo to Saddar would be started shortly.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2017