LAHORE, Nov 24: Stallholders in Sunday bazaars have claimed that the rate list provided to them by the market committee allows them very little margin of profit, because of which they are compelled to sell substandard stuff.
Talking to a team of reporters in various Sunday bazaars, they said that customers came to buy quality stuff which, however, did not exist in Sunday bazaars. A stallholder was able to make Rs300 to 500 a day only by selling substandard items, they maintained.
Prices in Sunday bazaar are 15 to 25 per cent lower than the market.
The stallholders said they had brought the matter to the notice of the authorities concerned but to no avail.
They also complained about the attitude of market committee members, who, they said, kept shifting them from one place to another without any reason. They claimed that they had to offer different commodities to market committee inspectors free of cost just to “please” them.
At the Gulshan-i-Ravi bazaar, a market committee inspector forced out two stallholders who had failed to follow committee’s instructions.
When contacted in this regard, market committee inspector Mohammad Mustafa said if the market committee allowed the stallholders more profit, then no customer would come to Sunday bazaars.
A majority of customers, too, complained that the items available in Sunday bazaars were substandard.
Meanwhile, the city district government has yet to fulfil its promise that it would launch a campaign to remove garbage from Sunday bazaars.
Governor: Governor Khalid Maqbool could not wake up on Sunday morning to conduct the scheduled inspection of Sunday bazaars in Lahore as he kept working on the paper being published to enlist government’s three-year performance till 3:30am during the previous night.
The governor who had gone to Islamabad to attend the oath-taking ceremony of the prime minister on Saturday inspected the Punjab Assembly at night and said that he would surely inspect special bazaars to check the quality and prices of items being sold there.
He had never missed any engagement during his tenure despite a busy daily schedule. His inability to wake up for the first time as the governor surprised his staff and reporters who had reached the Governor’s House to accompany him during the inspection.
The Punjab government is publishing the paper expectedly on Monday in line with the federal government.
“The governor retired at 3:30am and therefore he cannot follow his schedule of visiting different Sunday bazaars”, his spokesman informed the waiting reporters.
Meanwhile, arrangements were made to welcome the governor. There were welcome banners and police were deployed at the entrances of the bazaars. Members of the market committee too were ready to receive the governor to give details of the conditions in the bazaars.
The arrangements nevertheless brought discipline to the bazaars. “Every body seems to be on his toes due to the scheduled visit by the governor,” a customer, Tariq, said, adding the prices too were low as compared to those last Sunday.