City’s ‘V-shaped’ expansion taxing resources, environment

[Salman]

City’s ‘V-shaped’ expansion taxing resources, environment

Integrated Master Plan 2021 full of technical flaws and not environmentally approved




LAHORE: The provincial capital is going ahead with a “faulty and unfeasible” master plan, which, instead of coping with the challenges of chaotic traffic, haphazard commercialisation, and ill-planned expansion of the city, is aggravating the situation.

Daily Times has learnt that the Integrated Master Plan 2021 for Lahore, which was prepared by the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (NESPAK) and cost millions of rupees, is full of technical flaws and not environmentally approved.

Due to the defective nature of the plan, the city government has failed to implement it in letter and spirit.

The Integrated Master Plan 2021, approved by the city government in 2004, was formulated to deal with land management, transport and environmental issues in the city. However, the government is brushing aside rules and regulations concerning these three areas while implementing the plan.

Sources told Daily Times that various projects pertinent to commercialisation and road and housing projects launched in the city during the last few years were in sheer violation of the master plan.

According to sources, mega projects like the Ring Road, Sundar Industrial Estate and new Bakra Mandi were contrary to the master plan. Another major violation was that the area allocated in the plan for agricultural purposes and green belts was being converted into residential areas, which had been occupied by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and private housing schemes.

“A number of violations prove the master plan is faulty and unfeasible. It needs to be amended,” said an official source.

It added that the plan lacked the vision to manage the soaring traffic load and waste material in the city.

“The plan does not cover proper management of solid and liquid wastes. There is also no provision in the plan of an expressway to check traffic congestions at various points in the city,” said the official. He warned that such loopholes in the plan would worsen the situation in Lahore, which has already been hit by air and noise pollution. The official pointed out another technical flaw – that the boundary of the metropolitan area shown in the plan had also included some areas of Kasur and Sheikhupura districts.

“This is causing a lot of trouble to the people who intend to initiate a business or housing project in the area falling within the overlapping boundaries. They have to go through a process of getting NOCs from two district governments, which often ends in litigation,” the source added.

Talking to Daily Times, Lahore’s Chief Metropolitan Planner Waseem Ahmad Khan admitted that according to the Integrated Master Plan, some areas of Kasur and Sheikhupura districts had been included in the metropolitan area of Lahore. However, he suggested that the governments of those districts could coordinate with the Lahore city government through a regional planning agency to manage those areas.

Another serious technical defect in the plan is that it neither checks the abnormal and irregular expansion of the city nor recommends a balanced expansion. Sources said that the metropolis was expanding abnormally in a V-shape in the southward direction between Ferozepur Road and Multan Road, ignoring international standards, which recommend that a big city should expand more or less equally in all four directions.

Planning experts argued that the ratio of traffic congestion, pollution, travel time and fuel cost would multiply in the V-shaped city due to its long roads and traffic congestion on signals and crossings.

“Though the city’s expansion only in the southward direction seems imbalanced, it is viable to focus on growth and urbanisation towards Raiwind and Thokar Niaz Baig, since expansion on other sides is not feasible due to River Ravi on one side and border area on the other,” Chief Metropolitan Planner Waseem Ahmad Khan said.

However, he revealed that the city government had planned to build Lake City towards River Ravi, which would balance the city’s expansion to some extant. He said that the Lake City project could not be started soon since it required Rs 70 to 80 billion.