KARACHI, July 21: Desperate for funds to run its day-to-day affairs, the Lyari Town administration has decided to award a Rs22.5 million contract to a party for the construction of 45 shops on a plot in front of the historical Kakri Ground, renamed now as Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Park.

An approval for the proposal was given by the town’s council in a recent meeting attended by the nazim of the union council concerned.

The contractor has agreed to pay Rs20 million to the Lyari Town council and another amount of Rs2.5 million to the Baghdadi union council initially as per the terms and conditions of the agreement.

A non-governmental organisation and some other stakeholders have been opposing the idea saying that the commercial project was bound to create traffic congestion and hinder movement of pedestrians around the project site, which falls in the already congested and densely populated locality. They want a park to be built on the plot as was proposed earlier.

However, TMO Aftab Saeed did not agree that the commercial project would add to such problems, arguing that the project site was already being used as an illegal parking lot. He said that the town had been facing a financial crisis for a couple of years and the project would help the town municipal administration to ease the pressure to some extent. He said the shops would be let out to interested parties as part of the plan to generate revenues.

He pointed out that the town administration had failed to pay even salaries of town officials as yet. He said that the substantial cut by the provincial government in the towns’ grant on account of the octroi and zila tax had badly affected the Lyari Town’ financial strength like other towns of the metropolis.

The TMO said that a formal agreement with the contractor of the proposed commercial venture was yet to be signed.

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