The Central Municipal Council (CMC) on Tuesday expressed its disapproval of the ‘growing phenomenon’ of people smoking at the entry and exit points of shopping centres.
At its regular bi-weekly session, CMC members discussed the problem and declared that the practice is totally unacceptable and harms the society.
The issue has been referred to the CMC’s public services and utilities committee for more study and to issue the necessary recommendations.
The CMC urged that the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) should conduct a study to ascertain the need for commercial outlets, especially on highways and their surroundings in Qatar.
A number of recommendations were issued in this regard. The CMC stressed that the MME study ought to focus on the needs of all cities and villages across the country for new commercial streets to address the shortage of outlets.
The council members highlighted that expressways and the surrounding areas are in need of more commercial shops to offer timely service for road users.
The CMC has previously addressed the issue and recommended that the entities concerned should allow the establishment of new shops at some residential and administrative apartment buildings to respond to the increasing demand and provide the residents and users of such buildings with easily accessible services.
The council also addressed the issue of high levels of underground water that a considerable number of buildings suffer from throughout the country. The council asked the MME to form a committee with members also from the CMC, the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), and Qatar General Water and Electricity Corporation (Kahramaa) to find practical solutions to the problem.
In addition, MME should adopt urgent and step-by-step solutions to tackle the issue of high levels of underground water in co-ordination with Ashghal and the other entities concerned in the country.
The CMC also asserted that the MME should ensure that building owners and construction companies abide by the approved building and construction specifications to mitigate the negative impacts of the high levels of underground water on their buildings.
The members of the council reiterated their concerns about the harmful consequences that could result from such phenomenon, stressing the need for timely solutions to avoid potential damage or loss of property. The council had issued similar recommendations in this regard earlier and demanded practical implementation of the same to resolve the issue.
