Lahore: Final drive against encroachments?

[Naveed Yaseen]

* DCO says he is monitoring drive g Says govt wants media to accompany anti-encroachment squads but fears negative portrayal of drive
* Admits officials may be pressured by ‘powerful’ encroachers

By Afnan Khan

LAHORE: The city government has, a few days ago, launched a fresh anti-encroachment drive, which according to District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Sajjad Ahmad Bhutta would encompass the whole city.

The DCO added that he was monitoring the campaign. He added that the ongoing “large-scale operation will break the backbone of the practice of constructing houses and setting up businesses on public property”.

In the leg of the campaign that stretched from Social Security Hospital on Multan Road to Thokar Niaz Baig on June 20, the city government removed a large number of illegal structures built on roads, including seven bakeries and restaurants, two furniture showrooms, five billboards, 17 illegal stalls, nine grass cutters and the rooms made to keep them.

DCO Bhutta monitored the campaign in Badami Bagh, Data Nagar, Old Yateem Khana, Sher Shah Road and various areas of the Walled City. He ordered the recovery of occupied public property and build schools for girls on the recovered land.

In a similar operation conducted by the Gulberg Town administration, the anti-encroachment squad removed 12 illegal stalls, several soda machines and several salad bars from Model Town Link Road.

The previous government had also launched a large number of similar campaigns, but neither the previous government nor the current one has made any policy to deal with the encroachers who return to the spots they were ‘evicted’ from.

In almost all operations, the encroachers who were removed from public properties were usually poor people who had put up stalls, carts or permanent structures on footpaths and greenbelts. However, encroachments by influential groups were seldom removed. These include the expansion of buildings, both residential and commercial, and the placing of counters by shopkeepers outside their shops.

Officials may get influenced: Talking to Daily Times, DCO Sajjad Bhutta did not rule out the issue that town administrations could be influenced into ignoring many ‘powerful’ encroachers.

He said the negligence could be controlled a lot if the media covered the anti-encroachment campaigns, but the authorities feared that the media would find faults in it and would project a negative image of the whole process. Bhutta said he was working on developing a positive relationship between the media and the government machinery. He said he would also hold meetings with the stakeholders to ensure that the people got factual and correct information.

When pointed out that the DCO only relied on the records presented to him by the town and district government authorities, he said that the town administrations and the Revenue Department were responsible to keep the record of all encroachments in the city and whether or not they were removed.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...008_pg13_2