LAHORE: To make the anti-encroachment drive more effective, the Lahore Development Lahore (LDA) will soon launch an LDA Encroachment Helpline on which citizens can register complaints against encroachment.

While talking to Business Recorder here on Wednesday, LDA Vice Chairman Sheikh Imtiaz Mahmood said that the Punjab Information Technology Board has developed software for the helpline and the process of hiring call agents was in progress; the helpline will be made operational after the hiring.

“The LDA’s digitisation committee envisaged the project with the aim of making crackdown against encroachment more effective. After registration of a complaint against encroachment, an official will be assigned to investigate the matter and subsequently clear the infringement.” “Since the entire process is computerised, the official assigned with the task will not be able to ignore the complaint and thus leave it unattended; he or she will be held responsible for not removing the encroachment,” he said.

He further said that recently the LDA launched an anti-encroachment campaign in the provincial capital in order to improve traffic flow and ease the lives of pedestrians across the city. “The anti-encroachment committee assigned Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (TEPA), a sub-agency of LDA, with the task of campaigning against encroachments to improve traffic flow across the city and alleviate the problems of pedestrians,” he added.

Mahmood observed that the pedestrians face hardships due to encroachments and thus its elimination from markets, streets, and footpaths will make their life easier. “To improve the situation, a campaign against encroachments was launched in the city and businesses representatives are fully supporting the campaign. The awareness campaign has been launched in all small and big markets of the city, in which pamphlets will be distributed,” he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021