Footpaths for Sale, Pedestrians for Punishment

In Srinagar today, walking on a footpath has become a luxury. The administration appears to have quietly surrendered public spaces to roadside vendors and shopkeepers who have turned pavements into private extensions of their businesses. The result is simple: pedestrians have been pushed onto busy roads, left to dodge speeding vehicles while the authorities look the other way.
The irony is staggering. Footpaths were built with public money for public use, yet they now resemble open-air markets overflowing with fruit carts, vegetable stalls, cartons, furniture and household goods. In several commercial areas, even the roads themselves are narrowing under the weight of unchecked encroachments and haphazard parking.
Who, then, owns Srinagar’s footpaths? The pedestrians who pay taxes and expect basic civic amenities, or those who have illegally occupied every inch of available space?
The administration’s occasional anti-encroachment drives have become little more than photo opportunities. Officials remove encroachments one day, only to see them return the next. This revolving-door approach has exposed a complete failure of enforcement and, worse, has created an impression that there is an unofficial blessing for these illegal occupations.
The biggest victims are schoolchildren, elderly citizens, women and persons with disabilities, who are forced to risk their lives by walking on roads meant for vehicles. Every encroached footpath is an invitation to tragedy, and every accident that occurs because a pedestrian had nowhere else to walk is a damning indictment of civic governance.
The administration cannot continue to plead helplessness. If authorities can regulate traffic, collect taxes and impose fines, they can certainly reclaim public walkways. What is missing is not authority but the will to enforce the law consistently.
A city that cannot protect its footpaths cannot claim to be pedestrian-friendly or well-governed. Srinagar’s roads and pavements are not private property to be distributed among encroachers. They belong to the people.
The message to the administration is blunt: stop treating encroachment as a temporary inconvenience and recognise it for what it is—a complete hijacking of public space. Reclaim the footpaths, enforce the law without fear or favour, and return the city to its rightful owners: its pedestrians.