I stayed in Lahore Cantonment for a few days with my sister. We visited Saddar Bazar for a few times. It was a horrible experience to be in there. A complete traffic mess up and not on one single occasion, I found a policeman in the bazaar or on the tip of it to control or monitor traffic, encroachments, wrong parking, etc. While footpaths have been built, there is no check on encroachments. Fruit and vegetable vendors, dyers with their boiling cauldrons sat in the middle of these footpaths, so were the samosay wallas. Many shopkeepers had outstretched their space by occupying half the footpaths, even roads in some cases, blocking and hindering flow of traffic or those walking on foot.
One more noticeable thing was the ‘cable-shedding’. It made evenings and afternoons a very boring affair. There cable network connection in my sister’s house was not available for half the day everyday. They had no stand up UPS system to keep the cable signal on when there was a power outage. But they charge their customers heavily as does Wapda.
MARYAM A
Jhelum
