PESHAWAR, Sept 2: The city district government is finding it difficult to relocate the vegetable and fruit businesses scattered all over the city to a designated market constructed some five years back.

"As per law, only registered business persons can step into vegetable and fruit business and that too in a specified area, but what is happening in the city is just manifestation of lack of rule of law," an official at agriculture department acknowledged.

Agriculture Produce Market Act of 1939 envisaged the regulation of markets handling the vegetable and fruit wholesale businesses. As per this colonial-era legislation, no authority or person is authorised to set up, establish or use any place for the purchase and sale of agriculture produce and sell or store other than a declared 'market area' notified by the government.

Similarly, the Local Government Ordinance 2001 also envisaged that there should be one officially designated market place in each district. The reason for this provision in the law was to discourage the opening of many market places in one district, the official explained.

Contrary to such legal provisions, however, vegetable and fruit businesses are still taking place in old markets operating at various parts of the city, causing problems not only to the dwellers of the nearby areas, but also for the government to check their operations.

Currently, a wholesale vegetable market was operational just at arms length of city district government secretariat near Hashtnagari along the railway line and the fruit business was taking place on GT Road near Gulbahar.

Movement of mini trucks carrying agriculture produce in these otherwise densely populated areas causes traffic jams and subsequently problems for the commuters get multiplied.

To get rid of such messy business, the government had in 2006 constructed a new vegetable and fruit market, located at Ring Road, Peshawar. The government borrowed Rs180 million from the Asian Development Bank for the project and as per the plan, all these markets have to be shifted to the designated place.

Traders in the vegetable and fruit markets argue that the new market is located on the fringes of the city and the area was comparatively less secure.

"The wholesale business starts at midnight and culminates before sunrise, so moving with heavy cash all the way from different parts of the city to that place is a risky job," Haji Abdul Jalil, a local vegetable trader, told Dawn, while explaining the reason behind their reluctance to shift to the new place.

The provincial government had set a cut-off date of June 30, 2007 for shifting these businesses to the new market and since then it kept on extending the deadline, but to no avail.