No billboards should be set up on footpaths in Karachi, Administrator and Commissioner Iftikhar Shallwani has ordered. He directed that only small-sized billboards be installed on buildings.
Shallwani said the purpose is to beautify the city and protect the rights of pedestrians. He was meeting a delegation of the Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) led by Zubair Chaya. KATI President Saleemuz Zaman and former president Shaikh Umar Rehan attended it too.
The commissioner said roundabouts would be allotted for marketing after an auction.
He told the business community that it has an important role to play in the country’s development.
Measures are being taken, he said, to uplift the road infrastructure of the industrial areas. “We will have no issue if the present allottees want to get back the roundabouts after the auction,” he said, adding that roundabouts would be auctioned for one year. Big sized signboards on footpaths are violating the rights of pedestrians and destroying pavements, said Shallwani.
He said the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation is working to make the city better despite limited resources. The Kati delegation had a request for the administrator to rename the Korangi 3,000 Road after former Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry president SM Muneer for his services. This request was accepted by Shallwani. He said that the services rendered by all such people should be acknowledged.
Furthermore, Shallwani has decided to implement a system of open auctions to control the price of eggs and chicken. Buying and selling without an open auction will be banned according to a notification issued by his office. An open auction requires poultry and egg sellers or their representatives to be physically present at the auction site, where they would bid for the price of chicken and eggs.
A kilogramme of chicken is currently being sold within a price range of Rs320 to Rs340 but the official rate on the Karachi commissioner’s website is Rs214 per kilogramme.
The location for the wholesale auction has been fixed at the New Sabzi Mandi. Shallwani issued a notification earlier in the week, taking note of the sharp rise in the price of chicken and eggs in the city and had promised a crackdown against profiteers to bring the price of poultry to the government’s rates. Two shopkeepers had been arrested in Nazimabad under these orders and a fine had been imposed. This action has been extended to shopkeepers in Liaquatabad on the assistant commissioner’s orders while fines have been imposed on poultry sellers in District East.
