PESHAWAR - Despite the tall claims of provincial government and district administration to ensure availability of cheap edible items, government has failed so far to establish a single Sasta Bazaar in Peshawar.
Every year in the month of Ramazanul Mubarik, government was managing to set up temporary stalls to provide edible items at subsidized rates and these Sasta Bazaar had been available in all four towns of Peshawar but this time in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, the administration has ignored the masses to provide them relief while the shopkeepers and road side vendors are looting the masses by imposing self fixed rates of the commodities.
Though in historic Chowk Yadgar Peshawar, stalls have been made but shopkeepers are not available in these stalls. It was responsibility of the district administration to provide them incentives and subsidy to bring them to Sasta Bazaar to ensure relief to the poor but due to fear of losses, the business community and vendors abstained to bring their items to the stall.
In previous government of Awami National Party such stalls were available in four towns of Peshawar but this time the district administration failed to set up Sasta Bazaar at important points of the city where people were frequently visiting for shopping.
The well-off people can buy edible commodities of Ramazan even in expensive super stores but the common people are badly affected due to high prices of the commodities at ordinary shops. Huge rush on utility stores and long queue of the visitors forced the people to do shopping in open market.
Some of the shopkeepers in Bazaar are selling substandard food items and rice as per the rates of the original items. One resident of Peshawar Gohar Khan told this scribe that Shopkeepers and profiteers cannot be stopped simply by imposing fine as they are earning a lot and giving fine in million is not difficult for them. It is prime responsibility of the government to ensure Sasta Bazaar on such important occasion as during month of Ramadan the consumption of every edible commodity is high and such situation needs government's attention to provide relief to poor segment of the population.
BABAK DEMANDS IMMEDIATE ACTION AGAINST POWER OUTAGES
Condemning the unannounced and excessive load shedding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Provincial Information Secretary of Awami National Party, Sardar Hussain Babak asked the federal government take immediate measures to stop load shedding during holy month of Ramadan.
In a statement issued from Bacha Khan Markaz he said that both federal and provincial government must resolve their differences and provide relief to the masses. He added that during Awami National Party's government, numbers of power generation schemes were initiated but the incumbent provincial government has not taken steps to maintain work on the power generation projects.
He maintained that it is very regrettable to torture the poor masses in this scorching heat and Ramadan. He said that cursing and criticizing each other is very easy task but giving relief to the masses is indeed a difficult task in which both provincial and federal government failed.
He asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to focus on the issue of energy crisis in the country and give relief to the poor masses in the holy month of Ramadan. He expressed the hoped that if both PTI and PML-N shun their differences then masses will avail every facility and would get rid of loadshedding.