FAISALABAD: Citizens will shortly have the first food street as the district government has constructed beautiful food cabins at the Iqbal Stadium.

Facade of the stadium, shops and main gate of the stadium have also been given a new look by the district government in a bid to make it a centre of attraction for the people.

Traditional and fast foods like barbeque, ‘dahi bhalle’, ‘gol gappay’, burgers, ‘shawarma’, juices, ‘chaat’, salad, custard etc will be the features of the food street.

The district government will auction the cabins soon.

Iqbal Stadium is a place of attraction for the people because of two play lands -- Sindbad and Fun Land -- and the biggest public park -- Jinnah Park.

Currently, the area has some restaurants and shops of traditional foods offering edibles at moderate prices. Shops stay open from morning to evening while restaurants offer lunch and dinner packages.

A number of people particularly children throng the area on Fridays and Sundays to have food and recreation at play lands.

Recently, the district government has spent million of rupees to widen the roads around the stadium and also gave a new look to dozens of shops established under its stairs.

The facade of the shops have been beautified with red tiles and footpaths with cemented pavements.

The district government has also changed the design of the main gate dividing its entry and exit gates with a permanent greenbelt.

Prior to start of the beautification work, the district administration had asked all shopkeepers of the stadium to remove their structures of assorted types with red tiles.

The shopkeepers had erected various kinds of boards inscribed with names of their products and shop titles defacing the stadium’s outlook.

Yaseen, a shopkeeper at the stadium shops, said owing to construction work they had to face losses and “now we are confident to make recovery as roads have been widened with spacious parking area.”

He said beautification of the stadium and change in shops facades had made it on a par with some shopping areas of D Ground and People’s Colony, a posh locality attracting people of different areas for shopping of clothes, shoes, mobile phones and a lot of eating points. “Now people of Faisalabad will have ‘Lahore’s Fortress Stadium-like environment’”.

An official said facade of the stadium had been constructed in early 80’s and tenants of shops had made a number of changes as well.

He said Rs30 million had been spent on the road with a parking facility for about 200 cars. He said as many as Rs15 million had been spent by almost 100 shopkeepers from their own resources.

DCO Noorul Amen Mengal told Dawn that more than two acres of land was occupied by the land mafia and the district government retrieved it before launching the development effort.

He said cricketers Misbahul Haq and Saeed Ajmal had visited the stadium and appreciated the efforts of the district government for beautification of the stadium.

Published in Dawn February 16th , 2015

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