A tad too late, the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) has started removing illegal cattle markets set up inside urban areas after imposing section 144 on the sale of sacrificial animals within the city except the seven sale points established in the city’s outskirts, Pakistan Today has learnt. Free transport service plan for citizens to travel between their residential areas and cattle markets has been finalised and the buses allocated for this purpose would be operational from today.
The sale points of sacrificial animals from before would be shut down this year as a ban has been imposed on keeping animals in urban areas for two months and strict implementation is to be made sure. Around two dozen mini buses have been allocated to run across nine different routes of the city. Moreover, CDGL has arranged trolleys to transfer animals bought by citizens from cattle markets to their residential areas.
The originating points of these nine routes are Qaddafi Stadium, Babu Sabu, Shoq Chowk, Batapur, Sadar Chowk, Thokar Niaz Baig, Shalamar Chowk, Chauburji and Imamia Colony. The buses would take citizens to the nearest cattle market. CDGL had exempted the entry and sales tax on sacrificial animals earlier to bring them to sale points around Lahore for Eid ul Azha and announced that no animal would be brought to the old cattle market at Babu Sabu this year.
The citizens complained their Eid preparations would be affected due to the untimely ban imposed by the government. They criticised CDGL for imposing section 144 late. Akmal Arif, a businessman, said there were a few joyous occasions left in our problem-ridden country and the government was trying to sabotage people’s felicities. A citizen, Sardar Asghar, said the government had made the sacrificial ritual impossible this year.
Nauman Zafar, another citizen, called it CDGL’s attempt to hide its incompetence in managing cattle markets inside the city. He said the government had never been able to provide proper public transport facility and the transport facility introduced by the government would also fail.
People did not buy that the government was shifting cattle markets to the outskirts of the city because of dengue epidemic and said even dengue outbreak was not controlled.
