RAWALPINDI:President Traders Welfare Association, Punjab, Sharjeel Mir, has said that local traders will be left with no option but to quit businesses if the increasing encroachments problem is not solved.
Talking to reporter, he said that the encroachers had left no place in the city bazaars where a customer could visit wholesale markets.
Mir said that illegal car parking was regular, even in the presence of traffic cops, creating massive traffic jams and causing accidents.
He said that illegal motorcycles parking around Moti Bazar, Raja Bazar, China market, bara Bazar and other areas of the city had made the situation so bad that even a pedestrian, especially women with kids, could not move.
Mir urged the Deputy Commissioner to look into the long-standing issue and rectify it before it worsens further.
President Moti Bazar Chaudary Muhammad Iqbal urged the metropolitan corporation and traffic police to play their due role in removing the encroachment from the city’s busiest roads and demanded the government devise a plan to shift wholesale markets from the city to the proposed ring road to ease traffic congestion.
He said that for the past few months, the vegetable vendors had occupied half the road by placing vegetables in front of their shops in the Bansa Bazar and Raja Bazar areas, hindering traffic flow.
“It is the need of the hour to construct parking plazas in city markets at the earliest, and strict action must be taken against the encroachers,” he demanded.
Meanwhile, the residents of the Railway workshop area said that due to the closure of the overhead bridge near the transit camp, the fruit and landa vendors had occupied the road illegally, resulting in traffic jams the whole day.
They added that the bridge which connected the city areas to the Cantonment had been damaged due to heavy traffic during the night, and the Pakistan Railways had closed it also for light vehicle traffic to avoid accidents while Ching Chee drivers had also set up a stop on Zairat road adding more traffic jams in the area.
When contacted, the deputy commissioner officer spokesman told reporter that a meeting regarding the issue of encroachments was held with trade bodies of the city.
He informed that the DC acknowledged the integrity of the issue and assured the traders that the area from Iqbal road to Fawara chowk would be made free of encroachments as a pilot project.
He said that more parking plazas would be constructed in the city to resolve the ever problem of encroachments and traffic