By Asma Kundi
ISLAMABAD: Located at the foothills of the famous Margalla hills and remolded as “Art and Crafts Village” by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in 2006, Saidpur village, one of the oldest villages in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, is fast losing its charm due to inattention and lack of maintenance by the authorities concerned.
Piles of garbage and stinking smell from the polluted stream water continue to take a toll on the stunning historic village, which boasts the oldest culture and history of Islamabad when it used to consist of helmets surrounded by jungles with a few inhabitants.
Visitors complained about the lack of maintenance and upkeep on part of the authorities concerned with stray dogs roaming around and animals prowling nearby.
The CDA, the civic agency responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the federal capital including providing basic amenities, spent around $3.36 million dollars to preserve the 500-year-old multicultural village to turn it into a tourist spot.
Under the mammoth project, local houses were refurbished, the stream was cleaned and the historical buildings including a temple called Rama Mandir were renovated. A museum displaying old pictures of Islamabad was also opened in the village.
According to shopkeepers and hotel staff, the project successfully attracted many visitors, including foreigners, but this number was dropping with each passing day because of the decrepit environs. The shopkeepers, mostly selling handicrafts, complained that people now only show up to enjoy the local cuisine in restaurants.
Visitors at the Art and Crafts Village
Talking to World Echo, Sadaf Jamal, a visitor, shared that she visited the village first time for an outdoor shoot of her sister’s Nikah with the bride and the groom. “No doubt this Art and Crafts Village is beautiful, and this historical Mandar and buildings enhance the charm of the sighting.
The structures hare are worth visiting, but the dirty stream and its stinking smell are terrible,” she said.
She said that government should pay attention to the preserve the village to promote tourism in Islamabad.
Tabish Khan, who hailed from Malakand Khyber-Pakhtunkwa and worked as a waiter at a restaurant in Saidpur village, said that earlier, a large number of visitors flocked to the village, but this number has decreased drastically.
He believed that the current wave of inflation and political unrest was the reason behind the diminishing number of people visiting restaurants. He urged the government to take stringent measures to control inflation so that people could save money and visit restaurants and they could make money through tips.
Fozia Azam, a local of Islamabad, said that she first visited the village in 2010 and was very impressed by the ambiance, “but now it is difficult to breathe here due to the smell and trash”.
“In Pakistan, it is a problem that we spent millions of rupees on starting new projects but we hardly care to maintain the developed projects including this one,” she said.
CDA spokesperson Asif Shah said that janitorial staff regularly pick up trash to keep the clean streets clean. He said that people including locals and visitors throw trash and plastic in the stream, blocking the flow of the fading stream water.
He said that they were waiting for the rain so that the rainwater could clean the choked stream.
