PESHAWAR: The traders and officials of local government department agreed conditionally to launch an anti-encroachment campaign in different bazaars of Peshawar.

According to a statement issued here on Thursday, the decision was taken in a meeting wherein traders were represented by Peshawar Chamber of Small Traders and Industry president Shakir Siddiqui.

Town-I nazim Zahid Nadeem, Markazi Tanzeem-i-Tajiran Khyber Pakhtunkhwa president Malik Meher Ilahi, Town-I TMO Saleem Khan and others also shared their views on the occasion.

The participants agreed that the administration would point out the encroachments and formally ask the traders to remove the hurdles without any further notices. A barbed wire will be placed at Chowk Yaadgar near tubewell to stop entry of vendors. Besides, a yellow line will be drawn outside the shopping centres that would not be crossed at any cost.

Meanwhile, the traders of various bazaars around Ghanta Ghar have expressed concerns over the restrictions on movement of public transport vehicles on the heritage trail and demanded of the provincial government to remove the hurdles.

Traders’ representatives Mohammad Ameen, Asif Khan Durrani,Tariq Khan and Haji Mohammad Ijaz said that the restrictions on public transport caused serious problems for the local population and business community.

“We are facing serious problems in transporting our goods and even shifting of patients. We have now only one option to shift our business from Peshawar because restriction on public transport vehicles and work on Bus Rapid Transit project affected our businesses,” they said.

The traders, they said, had already suffered due to terrorism in the province. “Now the government is creating problems for them,” they said and urged the government to take traders on board in taking such decisions and compensate all those, who had suffered due to BRT and heritage trail.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2018