Asia’s longest bazaar seems to have become the continent’s messiest as its main thoroughfare has been converted into a fruit and vegetable market.
Dozens of fruits and vegetable carts are seen lined up on the 40-50 metre stretch of the narrow Tench Bhata Road, once claimed to be Asia’s largest Bazar, leaving little space for vehicular traffic and for pedestrians to pass through.
Motorists move at a snail’s pace amidst the virtual bedlam as the cantonment board’s enforcement staff seems to be unable to clear the road of its fruit and vegetable vendors as well as the plethora of other encroachments.
“Nelaam Ghar” host Tariq Aziz in his show once termed the bazaar as Asia’s longest bazaar, which is home to hundreds of shops, department stores and restaurants, crammed on both sides of the road.
The veracity of the claim had yet to be firmly established as Asia houses giants like China, India and Japan. However, this market, which serves around half a million residents, could easily win the label of Asia’s messiest.
Of particular headache to drivers of private and public transport venturing on the road was the 40-50 metre-long stretch starting from the square at “Octroi No 22” to Tench Road.
The real trouble is that the fruit and vegetable vendors have a contract to occupy almost every inch of the remaining space on the roads.
“We have been conducting raids to remove encroachers and things are on the mend”, said Cantonment Board Enforcement Official Sardar Atif.
His words ring hollow given the fact that his enforcement staff fails to keep away the carts for more than one day.
“Nobody knows about the dealing between the vendors and the enforcement staff,” says Safeer, an employee of Abid Medicos.
The intractable mess at this stretch of the Tench Road started unfolding a couple of years ago when the vendors were shunted from their former place which used to be a wide-enough vacant lot just outside the regular fruit and vegetable market adjacent to the boundary wall of Combined Military Hospital (CMH).
With a number of sensitive offices situated nearby, fruit and vegetable vendors were asked to move away. Therefore, they moved to this thoroughfare and created a mess.
“I make a profit of a few hundred rupees a day to meet the living costs of my family”, says a fruit-seller, Baba Salam.
“My family will starve if I am moved to some other place”, he said.
“There is desperate need to house these vendors at suitable alternative sites, and we are in search of such sites”, a cantonment board official, Rana Manzoor said.
However, Rana Atif of the cantonment board enforcement section said that an alternative site for Tench Road vendors was being developed at Dhok Sayedaan at the fag end of the Tench Road.