Kot Lakhpat fruit market strike on April 3

LAHORE, March 30: Commission agents at Kot Lakhpat Fruit and Vegetable Market will keep their businesses closed on April 3 in protest against government move to acquire the place and shift the market to a 'far-off' venue. No buying or selling would be allowed at the market on Sunday, decided a meeting of Anjuman Arhtian on Wednesday. Presided over by Anjuman president Haji Yaseen, the meeting urged Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to directly hold talks with the stakeholders as bureaucracy was misguiding him. Shifting of the market to a place near Kahna would render hundreds of people jobless and also increase vegetable and fruit prices because of its distance from the city which would raise transportation charges, they said. The governing body of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) had decided in January this year to acquire 35 kanals of land for the Kot Lakhpat Fruit and Vegetable Market. The decision was taken in the light of Punjab agriculture department's recommendations that the market should be shifted to some other place as it had not only become a source of pollution for adjoining localities but also causing traffic jams on Ferozepur Road. The land for Model Town Extension Housing Scheme was purchased by the LDA from the Model Town Society in 1978. The Kot Lakhpat fruit and vegetable market was established by the LDA over 100 kanals as part of its Model Town Extension Housing Scheme. Some 25 fruit and 90 vegetable traders who were allotted shops in the beginning have been doing business there at present. The number of 'outsiders' was 75 at the fruit and 32 at the vegetable market. A cold storage has also been set up besides a bank and a post office.