By Daily Excelsior – 29/05/2019
Imagine and conjecture, guess or assess whatever, one would find sixteen long years insufficient for Pahalgam Development Authority (PDA) for building and completing a shopping complex of absolutely normal size and structure in the famous tourist place of Pahalgam in Kashmir and making it fit for occupancy. The pinch of paying and waiting is felt by none other than the shopkeepers, the ultimate beneficiaries, who would have liked to occupy the spacious shops allotted to them much earlier.
The affected shopkeepers lament that while they paid “hefty” sums to the Authority, the PDA was just handing over the incomplete and faulty structures and space to them. The allotment is nowhere and the long wait of the desirous shopkeepers after having deposited the requisite monies of Rs. 20 lakh and Rs. 16 lakh respectively depending on the size of the shop, was yielding no results excepting getting “things” in dilapidated and faulty conditions. Not only this, the quality of the construction is said to be below the average levels as in rains, there are leakages and seepages in these constructed shops. The shopkeepers are, instead, asked to take possession of incomplete, defective and unfinished shop spaces which obviously they cannot as they have to keep their merchandise in good saleable condition and attract the customers. The tangle needs to be settled at an early date and we urge the authorities to have the problem resolved.