While many shopkeepers in Paltan Bazaar complain about waterlogging hampering their business, the fraternity has not been able to prevent encroachment by traders that have exacerbated the water logging problem in this area also called the heart of Dehradun.
Rainy days often find the road near Paltan Bazaar water logged. The shop keepers here complain that while the rain thins down the number of customers visiting their shops, the number is further decreased to almost nothing because people don’t visit shops along water logged roads.
The traders complain that it is futile to complain to the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun about this problem as the authority rarely takes effective action. However, the members of the business fraternity are not ready to admit their own role in increasing civic anomalies most important of which is water logging.
It is common knowledge that encroachments by shopkeepers have not only covered the roadside drains in Paltan Bazaar and other areas of the city, but have also led to conitnuing disorder on the roads and deterioration in the level of sanitation all over the State and hence the growing health issues.
Whenever the MCD, police and district administration attempt to remove these encroachments, the business fraternity rises up in a series of protests and maintain that though they care for the city and its residents, they cannot ignore their business interests which laegely depend on this.