LAHORE: Shops, plazas 'unsealed'

Published September 1, 2004

LAHORE, Aug 31: The Lahore Development Authority on Tuesday unsealed the shops, banks, stores and shopping plazas on Model Town Link Road on an undertaking that the owners would apply for commercialization and sanction of site plans within 10 days.

Business on the road was suspended for the second day as the shop and plaza owners remained busy negotiating a deal for desealing of their premises during the earlier part of the day. The desealing proceedings started in the afternoon.

Desealing of nearly 235 shops and 64 plazas continued till late in the evening following the meetings of the representatives of associations and owners with District Nazim Mian Amer and LDA Director-General Akhlaq Tarrar.

The owners agreed to give written undertakings to get their premises commercialized and site plans sanctioned and payment of the prescribed charges to the authority.

Their association also gave a collective undertaking that the owners would fulfil all legal formalities for getting the site plans of their buildings approved and their premises commercialized. The LDA had sealed all shops and plazas on the road on Sunday on the ground that neither the site plans had been sanctioned nor the premises commercialized.

The authority rejected the site plans approved by the Punjab Employees Cooperative Housing Society, which had sold most of the plots, on the ground that it was not authorized to do so as only the LDA had the powers to sanction site plans and commercialize plots in its controlled areas. The housing societies could not sanction the site plans of even their offices.