ISLAMABAD: As a huge crowd gathered at the weekly Sunday bazaars at G-6, encroachers could be seen selling products on the footpaths, causing inconvenience for pedestrians and motorists.
A report aired by a private news channel said citizens are continuously facing intense problems due to encroachment mafia that keeps occupying the road just outside the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) Sunday Sasta Bazar.
The encroachers occupy the whole road from Lal Masjid to the Aabpara Taxi stand and all sorts of stalls are established there.
Many shoppers, especially motorists, complained about the lack of a proper parking facility, saying they have to shuffle from place-to-place before they can get space to park.
A female customer at G-6 Sunday bazaar said that the tide of encroachments has reached an alarming level, but the CDA authorities were either unaware of the problem or have turned a blind eye to it.
“An equal number of weekly bazaars have sprung up on footpaths outside the specified weekly bazaars in Islamabad,” said another shopper Nomaan Ali. He demanded that illegal bazaars should be eliminated to facilitate regular shoppers at the Sunday bazaars.
“Due to a shortage of parking places, we are compelled to buy our groceries from the open markets at higher prices as we can never find parking at the Sunday bazaars,” said a shopper at the Aabpara bazaar.
Basit Tahir, a visitor, said that if there were proper parking arrangements at the weekly bazaars, no one would park vehicles on the roads.
A shopkeeper at Aabpara Market said that vehicles parked at roadsides covered a major portion of the road, which could cause accidents.
According to CDA officials, the civic body was well aware of the problems being faced by residents and said that it would try to address these concerns.