CHINIOT - Encroachments have plagued every part of the main bazaar, residential and commercial areas. Citizens are suffering at the hands of encroachers in the main bazaar and bordering streets, especially Muslim Bazaar, Chowk Jathothan, Rail Bazaar, Mandar Road, Faisalabad Road, Lahore Road and Shahra-e-Quaid-e-Azam and Mudrassatul Binat Road.
The vendors and shopkeepers have occupied footpaths creating troubles for pedestrians, students and ladies. With the green signal of the TMA fruit, chicken, beef, mutton and vegetables sellers have encroached Chowk Jathothan, Rail Bazaar and Mandar Road while cloth merchants and vendors have occupied one half of the Muslim Bazaar while other shopkeepers encroached with their wooden and iron khokhas and occupied the footpath throwing their thrash on the main road.
Now, many unauthorized signboards are brightly illuminated in main bazaar. Shop owners are putting signboards at all available vacant walls in the bazaar. Similarly, the condition of Sargodha-Lahore Road needs attention of the authorities concerned, which is specially occupied with large size of ramps and billiard tables where students of nearby primary and high schools not only waste their time but also gamble. The billiard tables have occupied large portion of road which is causing hindrance in flow of traffic.
The TMA had kick started a number of anti-encroachment drives in the past but due to lack of consistency these drives have failed to produce results.