Traders welcome SC's order to remove encroachment

HYDERABAD:

The Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industry (HCSTSI) has welcomed the Supreme Court's order to remove encroachment from roads.

In a statement on Monday HCSTSI President Muhammad Farooq Shaikhani said small businesses operating from occupied roads are also a big obstacle for the traders who run their businesses from shops and outlets.

However, he warned that time and again the federal, provincial and local governments have appeared helpless before such encroachers. Shaikhani emphasized that in the light of the apex court's order the local governments and the anti-encroachment cells should take immediate action for removal of encroachment in order to ease the flow of traffic.

He claimed that the anti-encroachment cell is practically ineffective in Hyderabad. "We have seen how similar orders of the courts were ignored by the concerned officials in the recent past," he said, referring to an identical order of the Sindh High Court in 2021 for removal of hard and soft encroachment.

Shaikhani alleged that the municipal and anti-encroachment cell's officials are beneficiaries of those illegal businesses which are set up on occupied roads, footpaths and greenbelts. He proposed that the government should impose penalties on the officials who fail to implement the supreme court's order concerning removal of encroachment.

Meanwhile, Traffic and Road Safety Foundation's chairman Javed Iqbal has said in a statement on Monday that all political parties, representatives of the business community and the civil society will have to stand in support if a successful anti-encroachment drive has to be carried out. He also suggest to Mayor Kashif Ali Shoro to ensure that a post operation monitoring mechanism is put in place because it is always seen that encroachment resurfaces after the exercise of removing it.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2024.