ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Interior Chairman Mohsin Aziz expressed concerns over Capital Development Authority (CDA)’s plan to auction vending points from May 15 to 17 and sought its details.

“Such auctions will attract investors and rich segments of society who will definitely exploit the poor vendors and under-privileged class of society will be neglected,” he said in a press release.

He said the CDA’s advertisement for auctioning the vending points was against last month’s direction of the committee. Mr Aziz said that in a meeting of the committee held on April 13, the issue of closure of Ehsas Programme was discussed and the CDA chairman had “categorically stated that the civic agency will extend the programme for poor vendors whose stalls were demolished. On the direction of the chair, a subcommittee was also constituted,” the statement said.

It added that the CDA chief was required to attend the meeting of the committee to be held on May 10 to brief the members about the initiative.

The civic agency is all set to auction 200 vending points on May 15, 16 and 17, out of the total 1,800 planned on a 10-year lease.

Apparently, this move will help the business community and small vendors are likely to get nothing as in open auction they cannot compete with businessmen.

An official said that the idea of having planned vending points was good as this will add beauty to Islamabad and will also end the culture of pick and choose allotment of kiosks/vending points.

However, he said instead of an open auction, the CDA should allot the vending points under subsidised and controlled rates in a transparent manner so that poor people could also make a bid.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2023