KARACHI: Of the 200 weekly bachat bazaars being held across the city, half are organised on the land rented out to the organisers by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation while the rest are arranged on the land controlled by the cantonment boards, Defence Housing Authority, navy, Pakistan Steel, railway, PIA and other agencies, it emerged on Wednesday.

The DHA Sunday bazaar, one of the most popular weekly markets of the city, was officially closed on Tuesday by the authorities who said the facility had been set up on private property and their agreement with the marl(et organisers finally expired last year.

Sources said that around 200 small and big bachat bazaars were organised on a weekly basis in different parts of the city.

For the past 35 years, they had been not only a source of income for a large number of stall holders and vendors but also had provided people access to edibles, clothes and other products at a price much lower than the market, the sources added.

Sources in the KMC explained that in thecase of bachat bazaars, the key players were their organizers who obtained land from the respective land controlling agency and sublet stalls to traders and vendors on a daily basis. The organisers were also responsible for provision of electricity and security besides solving disputes between the traders and consumers, the sources said.

The bachat bazaars were introduced during Gen Zia`s regime and the first such bazaar was inaugurated in Islamabad in the early 1980. A few months later a similar bazaar was opened in Karachi also. Earlier, such bazaars were organised only on Fridays for which they were called Juma Bazaars.

But keeping in view public demand over the years, such bazaars were arranged in different localities of Karachi on different days and were accordingly named after the days of a week such as Mungal Bazaar and Itwar Bazaar.

Three major bazaars on Sundays are organized near Safari Park in Gulshan-iIqbal, near Laal Flats in Gulistan-i-Jauhar and in Sector 3½ of Korangi. The biggest bazaar is spread over 22,000 square yards and the smallest on around 1,000 square yards.Until 2003 the Bureau of Supplies used to control / oversee the bachat bazaars without collecting rent from the small traders considering the facility to be a welfare project to help people from lowand middle-income groups.

The KMC was later brought in and it started collecting monthly rent at the rate of Rs3 per yard from the organisers. This way the civic agency generated an annual revenue between Rs8 million and Rs8.5 million.

Since the beginning of this financial year, the KMC enhanced the rent by over 800 per cent to Rs25 per yard per month, leading to a dispute between the organisers and the civic agency. Responding to Dawn queries, the KMC spokesperson said that the organizers refused to pay the rent at the enhanced rate and the litigation that followed was still pending before a court.

He said that 91 to 92 bachat bazaars were organized on a weekly basis around eight to 10 each day at different location so that people get goods at affordable prices.

A large number of small traders earned their livelihoods from these bazaars while hundreds of thousands of less privilegedpeople visited the bazaars to grab low priced goods, the KMC spokesman added.

The sources said the organizers had to obtain no-objection certificates from the Bureau of Supplies, local police station, district administration before approaching the KMC for land. If the KMC or the other land controlling authorities withdrew the NOCs, the permission thus granted to the organisers stood cancelled, they explained.

Prices in the weekly bazaars are fixed at rates 20 per cent less than those prevailing in the regular market, while vegetables and fruits are to be sold according to the official price list, with no bargain allowed.

Visitors can lodge a complaint with the organizer if the price list is not displayed or goods are sold at a rate higher than the official price. If the organiser fails to resolve the issue, the visitors can lodge a complaint against the organiser with inspectors of the bureau of supplies, district administration.

If found to be true, NOCs of the organizer are cancelled.

Some of the bazaar organizers whose permissions were cancelled included seven in North Nazimabad, three in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and one in Manzoor Colony.