LAHORE, March 25: There is a steady increase in encroachments in the provincial metropolis, thanks to the failure of the City District Government Lahore and town municipal administrations to control the menace.

More than 50,000 encroachments exist in various parts of the city, especially in markets and shopping centres and along busy roads. Most of these encroachments are temporary in nature as these are in the form of display of merchandise on roads, footpaths and corridors of markets and shopping centres. Yet these crop up at exactly the same places on all working days and obstruct smooth flow of traffic and even pedestrian movement.

A maximum number of encroachments are found in busy commercial areas like the Walled City, Circular Road, Anarkali, McLeod Road, Railway Road, Brandreth Road, Shahalam Market, Kashmiri Bazaar, Akbari Mandi, Landa Bazaar, Badami Bagh, Shahdara, Gowalmandi, Montgomery Road, Garhi Shahu, Dharampura, Islampura, Sanda, Mozang, Chowk Yateem Khana, Bund Road, Multan Road, Ferozepur Road, Ichhra, Chungi Amar Sidhu and Lahore Township areas. In other parts, the number is comparatively low.

One of the major reasons of encroachments in the busy shopping centres is sky-high prices and rents of shops. Shopkeepers and officials of the CDGL, town municipal administrations and the Lahore Development Authority create encroachments by renting out sidewalks and corridors to the vendors for day-to-day business at affordable rates. All such encroachments crop up only on working days when the people want the roads and footpaths clear for smooth movement.

Markets where people find it difficult to move around on working days, wear a deserted look when the encroachments disappear on closed holidays.

As the removal of encroachments is the responsibility of the CDGL, the TMAs and the LDA, they frequently launch ‘campaigns’ during which a few truckloads of wooden platforms, chairs, tables, signboards, wheelbarrows and merchandise are daily lifted only to be returned after verbal warnings or imposition of fine on the owners the same or the next day.