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Commercialisation worries Model Town residents

By Shoaib Ahmed

LAHORE: Model Town residents are concerned about the increasing commercialisation of the area, saying the managing committee of the housing society is breaking the rules by allowing advertising billboards and the establishment of a college.

The president of the Model Town Residents Association, Amer Azam, has written to the Punjab registrar of societies, Khalid Pervaiz, expressing concern that the managing committee is negotiating with Daewoo to build a bus terminal in J-Block, that the nurseries in the grounds of blocks E and F are being forcibly removed to make way for a college, and a mobile phone company has been allowed to set up hoardings in the grounds of blocks C and D.

The letter says the managing committee has given permission to various clubs to rent out ground space for commercial advertising and to build permanent structures. Mr Azam says the revenue generated is not going to the society.

He also says this is a violation of the rules of the society, whereby the grounds are for the use of residents. “Now these grounds have become the sole possession of these clubs and residents are threatened if they go into these grounds,” he writes.

Mr Azam says a mobile phone company has already put up stands and hoardings in grounds in blocks C and D, while the ground between blocks E and F has been leased out.

“This is a clear violation of your (registrar’s) orders issued on 16-6-04. This particular ground has locks installed on the gates and is totally inaccessible to residents of the society.” This gives a sense of the “Qabza group mentality” prevailing in Model Town, he adds.

About negotiations between the managing committee and Daewoo to build a bus terminal in J-Block, the letter says this is not in the committee’s mandate. He points out that most of the residents of Model Town are well-off and don’t use buses, so building a bus terminal there would be pointless.

“I would request you (registrar) to please instruct the managing committee to restrict itself to the running of day to day affairs of the society and not to venture into areas which are not in their mandate, and also to reserve the illegal leases they have given out and remove all encroachments from C and D block grounds.”

Speaking to Daily Times, Mr Azam said that he did not want Model Town to become a “commercial mess” and 95 percent of residents agreed with him. He said if the “unlawful commercialisation” of Model Town continued, the residents association would move to court. He said Model Town had over 100 colleges and schools, compared to 13 in Defence.

Mr Azam said residents of C and D block had written to the to Model Town society secretary on September 27, saying: “It is submitted for your information that without any intimation to the residents of block C and D, construction work has started in the cricket ground in front of our houses. This will not only compromise the privacy/security/field view of the residents but could also create law and order problems. It is requested that construction should not be allowed in front of our houses.”

A group of Model Town residents met at Mr Azam’s house on Tuesday evening to discuss the irregularities committed by the management committee.

The convener of Model Town society, Hanifur Rehman, denied that any college was going to be set up in the grounds of E and F blocks. He also denied that nurseries were being moved by force.

About the Daewoo bus terminal, Mr Rehman said: “The Daewoo people came to us and they want to invest millions of rupees in the project, but a place for the bus terminal has not yet been decided. We are looking at various possibilities”.

He said Daewoo had promised a number of facilities at the terminal. He denied that a mobile phone company was setting up big hoardings in C and D block grounds. He said the company had constructed a pavilion in the ground and wanted to put their name on it, but the society had stopped it from doing so.

Mr Pervaiz, the Punjab registrar of cooperative societies, said that at present there was a ban on the commercialisation in Model Town. He said the Model Town management committee had sent him a commercial policy, but he sent it back because it was not approved by the general body of the Model Town society. He said the management committee had not sent him any other policy on commercialisation. He said he had not received a letter from Mr Azam.

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