Srinagar: the City of Shops

Shankerpora is a mohalla deep inside the main byepass roadnear Nowgam, which surprisingly has more than a dozen high rises erected inlast few years each laden with scores of shop which may never be occupied andeven if occupied will unlikely be visited by many. Similar will be a tale aboutshops being raised within your vicinity. Why to have so many shops inrelatively secluded areas is worth a thought.

Srinagar, an ancient city set on the banks of Jhelum, wasthe capital of many Kingdoms and presently stands unique as ‘half the year’capital to the state of J&K, and recently under a central governmentinitiative has been designated as ‘smart city’ to be. Though town planners didgive us many master plans that more or less have been less adhered to and moreadhered against and as a consequence the unplanned growth continues.  It has expanded from 284 sq km area about 6decades back to an expanse of 786 sq km (as per the master plan statistics). Onthe pretext of unending urbanization, “Greater Srinagar” as we may call it hasengulfed the fertile agricultural fields of Ganderbal on its south east,Pulwama on its south, Baramulla on the north and Budgam to its west. As shouldbe the case everywhere as the city develops so does the need of having theshopping spaces. Previously there were few big shopping areas in Srinagar withdesignated shops for whole sale or retail shopping. Maharaj Gunj, Lal Chowk,Batmaloo, Nowhatta, Hazaratbal, Mahraj Bazar and later Nalahmar were few limitedand restricted places where people would go for big time shopping. And for thedaily needs, just recollect the old mohalla of yours and remember few shopowners there few decades back.

   

Expected with the growing influx of people from alldistricts there has been a malignant growth of houses and along with the samethere has been more than malignant growth of shops as well. There are atpresent 74 wards under Srinagar Municipal Corporation and since the city hastentacled into adjoining areas the outreach of Srinagar may well be more than a100 wards. And in each ward there are a good number of shops that were thereand thousands that have spread like wild fire over last 3 decades. About 18,500of these are registered (needs verification) but along with operate theunregistered ones.

The growth has been haphazard to be precise. Within thelanes and bylanes of the old mohallas have come up small shops (most carved outfrom even the homes), most selling food items. New colonies that have erupted all over the city, be it Lalbazar,Buchpora, Zakura, Chanapora, HMT, Nowgam, Hyderpora, Ompora have hundreds ofshops laid with less vigil on the layout, plan and even execution.  On the 12 km byepass, the 90 feet road from Sourato Ganderbal, the HMT stretch, Hazaratbal-GulabBagh link way on either side hasnow turned into a concrete jungle with shops visible every few meters. Lookaround the erstwhile residential areas of Jawahar Nagar, Raj Bagh, Karan Nagar,Dalgate, Khayam, Nowpora which have been consumed for business purposes and onecan see that every home/house is now converted into a hotel/guest house or ashopping arena.

Well these days it doesn’t take much to come up with amohalla or a road-side shop. In a  space,we have to dangle few packs of chips, daal, and other ready to eat namkeens,pile up few packs of biscuits, few cans of oil, few bags of atta, arrange fewjars of toffees, chocolates  in paralleland hide few bottles/cans of cold drinks/ juices in a company providedrefrigerator and here comes  up a shop.All the items for starting a shop are available at your doorstep by the vanwallas dropping this stuff on credit. 

True that with rising population and the tumultuousconditions we need to have availability of things close by all through the dayand local shops do ease our worries a lot. With a lull in the business and theuneasy conditions, these small mohalla shops are for sustenance of  poor people who  because of the circumstances(total slowdownof various businesses)  have been forcedto do something alternate for a living. Sustenance of the poor brethren isvalid but not at the cost of inconvenience. As it goes without saying that theshops have brought with them lots of problems. It is not that the shopkeeperslimit themselves to the space that there shop has but they occupy much more andbeyond. Foot paths, adjacent government spaces, even the main road at times isoccupied by the shop owners much to the inconvenience of the commuters. A shopkeeper takes the surroundings as his property and will not allow anybody toobstruct his shop. It is true that a shop is to be registered with themunicipal/labour authorities and yearly fee for same is to be deposited for thelegal security of the shop. In addition depending on the business done by theshop owner further registrations and necessary fee are to be paid. This meansthat we should have a data base about the exact number of shops in a particularward and hence in the city, which likely is lacking.

The smart city tag given to Srinagar city should be thereason of having the city carved into something unique and presentable, notugly and disarrayed. Amongst the many reasons of Srinagar city being not up tothe mark are cleanliness, proper roads and traffic tsunami followed bydisarrayed increase in the number of shops. We can have them but with strictadherence to well laid norms as well as limitations in their spread on thepublic space. Let us limit and regulate the unsurpassable growth of shops thatis proving dear to the beauty and appeal of this lovely and now to be a “smartcity”.

(Dr Muzafar Maqsood Wani is Consultant Nephrologist, SKIMS,Soura)

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