Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Once upon a time Shakarparian was a major point for the tourists who came to the country and visited the federal capital. But now it has lost public attention gradually. This could be perhaps due to the establishing of many others picnic points like Pakistan Monument rightly affiliated with it, Lake View park in the heart of Bani Gala as well as some other beautiful places. The city managers however did not pay significant heed on the improvement of Shakarparian so that it keeps grabbing people’s attention.

Shakarparian is the sub-part of the Margalla Hills National Park (MHN have 1376 including a forest area in its surroundings. That covers the area of 15,883 hectares while Bani Gala is also part of the MHNP that comprised 1902 hectares of land.

Some years ago the national and international tourists would visit Islamabad and they would have visit the Shakarparian as this was the main enjoyable place for them.

But now it presents a different picture as hardly few people are seen strolling there during weekends. The place looks like a desolate valley on weekdays.

Daily Times spoke to many tourists, vendors and shopkeepers there. It has learnt that the construction of the Pakistan Monument, the Lake View Park, and some other beautiful parks in the city caused a decrease in the attention of the tourists and the city managers and even the Capital Development Authority (CDA) also got careless about this issue as the renovation of mini parks, flowers plants and kids sports could have revived the interest of the masses.

A vendor Yaseen Ali, who has been selling his items at Shakarparian for the last 18 years recalled the days when his business was booming. He said that a few years ago, the point remained filled with crowds of people, adding that the mobs ultimately resulted to raise his sale as they used to buy ice cream, chocolates, and other items he possessed.

Ali said that the rush of tourists continued in all seasons. To observer the families, groups of friends, couples and college/school and university tours were usual here but nowadays few such visits happen even at weekends.

A security guard, who wished not to be named, says that the CDA through contractor, Muhammad Khan was spending more on the Pakistan Monument and ignoring the oldest tourism point of the city, adding that in the past a heavy rush of people would have remained on all days but now the trend had changed and the people preferred to visit other parts of the capital instead of the old tourist attraction.

The security guard suggests that the city managers should think about restorating the public charm of the historical point established in the capital for the sake of the people’s entertainment. People can respire in the pollution free air as Shakarparian was planned with a number of trees in it and a large portion of the forest persists with this surrounding.