Columnist: Zafar Iqbal Zafar
The Punjab Chief Minister’s move to issue instructions to the Assistant Commissioners to remove illegal encroachments within seven days is extremely important, but will it be able to take practical form on a permanent basis? Removing roadblocks is the proof of the Chief Minister’s true influence.
I would like to place this hadith on the rights of the roads in the court of public awareness and attention. Removing an annoying thing from the road is charity, but in the market of Raiwind Tablighi Markaz Gate No. 9 Railway Lahore Road, you found such money-hungry creatures who offer prayers by renting out the road for people and stuffing their stomachs with forbidden goods. The shopkeepers who rent out the road built for traffic and the footpaths for people to pass through are not responsible for the real problems, but rather the property owners force them to snatch the rights of the common people with the gun of expensive rents. In this context, both of them are morally and legally sinful, but they have never clashed with government employees or taken on their work themselves. Therefore, I will address the Punjab government and the Assistant Commissioner of Tehsil Raiwind to create awareness of the facts so that obstacles can be removed from the passage of the common people. The market of Raiwind Tablighi Markaz should not be associated with the friends and affairs inside the Tablighi Markaz, because the elders of the Tablighi Markaz have advised people of all parties to stay away from the market. The real center of the problems are the people of the market, so the solution should be limited to them.
Tablighi Markaz Railway Lahore Road should be doubled on an emergency basis for at least half a kilometer from Lallani Phatak Lahore Road to Raiwind Station. This road is the oldest internal and external road of the city. It is the dire need of the people to make it one-way. Raiwind. The city is world famous because of the Tablighi Markaz, where people from all over the world come, and when they see the narrowness of this road and the pile of problems, they do not leave with a good impression of the government and the country. Whereas if this same railway with the Tablighi Markaz becomes a one-way Lahore Road, a footpath for the people, and the traffic road is cleared of public interference, then not only will all the problems be solved, but the good name of the government will be discussed on the tongues of the people inside and outside the country. Until the Punjab government meets this public need of the present era, practical steps should be taken to overcome this problem using institutions and take swift action against those occupying the public road and those renting it out as if it were their own property, using constitutional state laws. Let me put it in the notice of the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Chief Minister of Punjab that the representatives who benefit from your party have never put it in your notice that how big a gold mine the railway property of Raiwind is in the interest of the government and the public. A few local vested interests have put a veil over the eyes of the railway officers. If this veil is removed, it will be seen that the employment of hundreds of people and the revenue opportunity of the Punjab government is being wasted. Look at the rent of the shops built on the railway property in front of the Tablighi Markaz Gate No. 9 in this context. How much monthly rent goes to the department and how much rent is collected from the shops built on the western side in comparison. There are two major benefits of investigating this. One is that the revenue of the railway property has been increased according to the market value. The other is that the path of tax evasion of private property will be closed.
Now, I would like to submit a proposal that is beneficial to the public and the country, to the notice of the Chief Minister of Punjab and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, that if a large number of commercial shops are built on the railway property in front of Gate No. 9 of the Tablighi Markaz, according to a map, then all the people who are setting up redhis and bases on the road will be able to do business there in a dignified manner and improve their livelihood. Moreover, it can also provide amazing benefits to the government of Punjab and Pakistan. And even if the government is not able to bear the construction expenses, the railway can level the land behind the shops and establish a huge redhi market and collect rent per redhi from the increasing number of more than three hundred redhis and bases. This will not only eliminate road and market obstacles, but also eliminate illegal encroachments on a permanent basis. I request the government working in the country’s interest to immediately establish a review committee to work on the basic needs of Raiwind and start working on it without wasting time. This project will not cost the national exchequer in any way. The loss of the city will not be proven, but with the best use and strategy of urban assets, Raiwind city will implement all its development projects on its own and will also increase the provincial treasury.
Respected and respected leaders and representatives of the political party PML-N, especially Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, please consider that Raiwind, a world-famous city that pays large amounts of taxes, is deprived of major facilities including clean drinking water, one-way roads, sports stadiums, libraries, art councils, courts, urban administrative affairs, offices. Pay attention to your own neglect along with the power-loving representatives who have been playing with the trust of the people for twenty-five years and have become the cause of the destruction of our city and our political party. This is a decisive period for the government, whether to lose the seats of the MNA in Raiwind like the MPA or to save the trust that is being lost among the people by solving the problems of Raiwind.
