KOHAT: Officials of the tehsil municipal administration (TMA) on Thursday sealed the operational private Shehbaz Gul Fruit and Vegetable Market located in the vicinity of city, for third time.

Tehsil municipal officer Hamid Mansoor told this scribe that they had cancelled the licence of the market in 2018 after which its owner got a stay order till Sept 25, 2019. He said that the owner was asked to fulfil all the prerequisites within a month, but he could not so. He said that there was a conspiracy going on to close down the government market which he would not allow.

Answering a question that hundreds of traders were getting cheaper items on their doorstep from the private vegetable market in the city, he said that if this plea was accepted then all the people would open markets in the city, which was unacceptable.

It may be mentioned here that the government market operated in the city for 33 years, but after expiry of the lease period the TMA did not renew it and moved it outside the city.

When contacted, owner of the private vegetable market Shehbaz Gul said that the Supreme Court had turned down plea of the TMA in 2013 and allowed the market to function. He said that he was granted a licence on court orders in 2015 on 25 conditions which he fulfilled.

He claimed that the shops in the government market had been distributed among irrelevant businessmen and being sold at high prices of Rs3 million, and as such nobody was ready to go there. He said that the TMA was closing down his market on flimsy grounds.

He said that now the officials had said that dimensions of the map were not according to the required building and he must obtain a no-objection certificate from the National Highway Authority.

He said that the market was located at a distance of eight kilometres from the highway.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2019