Lahore: LDA DG’s first open court turns into protest

[Naveed Yaseen]

THE first open court of the newly-appointed director general of the Lahore Development Authority turned into a protest demonstration after the DG and other LDA officials failed to reach the designated spot here on Sunday.

It is pertinent to mention here that the event was being advertised by the LDA for the last one week in press releases, saying that the DG LDA wanted to reach to the masses at their doorsteps.

The open court was scheduled to take place at the Venus Housing Society on the Ferozepur Road at 9am on Sunday and the residents of the housing society made necessary arrangements to receive the government officials who did not turn up at the venue, the reason best known to them. The Venus Housing Society was developed by a private builder in 1982 and since then the developers had left the development work like construction of roads, laying of sewerage and even installing the electricity poles incomplete. The society was also declared a non-electrified area because the developer did not pay the cost of poles and transformers to the Lahore Electric Supply Company and the residents were not issued electricity connections. The residents said the Lesco authorities had also wrote various letters to the LDA to pay the development cost to Lesco by confiscating the pledged plots of the builder so that the poles and transformers could be installed in the society but in vain. Dozens of residents of the society, who wanted the LDA DG and other officials concerned to witness the situation, went home disappointed after they came to know that the DG was not coming to the venue. Rest of the residents who were present at the venue staged a protest demonstration against the government, the builder and the LDA authorities.

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