hanks to the (alleged) patronage of the encroachers’ mafia by the municipal authorities, some of the major business hubs of Lahore are infested with various kinds of encroachments on what are essentially public spaces.

Most of the encroachments take the form of pop-up shops, roadside stalls and pushcarts that occupy the same spaces every day. In semi-commercial areas, these encroachments make life a living hell for the residents.

These encroachments are especially a nuisance for the pedestrians, and routinely cause traffic snarl-ups. Business centres on Hall Road, Beadon Road, McLeod Road, Brandreth Road, Circular Road, Empress Road and around the City Railway Station, and those in Gulberg, Liberty Market, Defence, Shahdara, Shadbagh, Garhi Shahu, Saddar, Township and Faisal Town are some of the worst hit in this regard.

The authorities have launched anti-encroachment drives in the past, but none became a sustained success.

The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that parts of the pavements and roads in the busiest of bazaars, especially on Hall Road, Beadon Road and McLeod Road are said to be ‘auctioned’ by the encroachment mafia in connivance with the authorities who are allegedly hand in glove with the traders’ unions. Millions of rupees are believed to change hands in the process.

Business centres on Hall Road, Beadon Road, McLeod Road, Brandreth Road, Circular Road, Empress Road, around the City Railway Station and those in Gulberg, Liberty Market, Defence, Shahdara, Shadbagh, Garhi Shahu, Saddar, Township and Faisal Town are the worst hit in this regard.

These traders allow the vendors to set up temporary stalls next to their shops in exchange for a daily or monthly ‘rent.’ A portion of this amount is allegedly shared by the officials in municipal and traffic police departments.

For the few traders refusing to be a party to this illegal setup, the going often gets tough. Nauman Bashir is deeply frustrated over the encroachments in front of his shop. He says there’s a “trade mafia supporting the encroachers and allowing them to sell fruits, vegetables and street food in front of their shops, in exchange for a daily rent ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.”

There’s another kind of encroachments to speak of: motorcycles parked in areas not designated for parking. You can find such transgressions at a number of small roads and streets in Lahore.

Talking to TNS, SP City Traffic, Munir Butt, says, “One should not blame Traffic Police for the encroachments in major business hubs in the city. In fact, [Traffic Police] have nothing to do with encroachments; it is a job for the MCL and other government agencies responsible for clearing the roads of such mess.”

Butt says several factors responsible for the situation. He adds that the Traffic Police are never loath to working together with other government departments to remove encroachments from the roads.

He says, however, that encroachments aren’t the only reason behind the incessant gridlocks outside commercial centres in the city; there are some other factors too. “Parking plazas are the need of the hour,” he declares. “These must be built in commercial areas so that people do not park their vehicles on the service roads.”

DSP Traffic Cantt, Farrukh Raees, says that registration of FIRs against the culprits is the only way to go about it. “The Traffic Police should first give out a warning. Action should be taken against repeat offenders.”

According to Raees, from January this year till date, the traffic police have lodged 142 FIRs against encroachers at traffic sector Mall 2 which consists of Regal Chowk, Hall Road and High Court areas.

Confronted with the allegations, Babar Mehmood Butt, the president of Hall Road Traders’ Association denies having ever supported encroachments. “We’ve clearly drawn yellow lines on the roads. The temporary stalls and motorcycle parking stands are not supposed to transgress those,” he adds.

Ahsan Zia is a print and broadcast journalist