City planning: Tenders for waste treatment plant to be floated in Oct, says Hassaan

Says government is cognizant of the falling water table in the city

LAHORE: The provincial government is fully aware that water table in the city is falling every year. It realises that efforts are needed to check this trend. Water treatment plants were also needed to ensure that the city’s future needs are taken care of.

These views were expressed by Adviser to Chief Minister Khawaja Ahmed Hassaan in an interview on Sunday.

He said some Chinese and Turkish firms had shown interest in undertaking projects for the purpose. He said tenders for the River Ravi Waste Water Treatment Project would be sought in October this year.

Hassaan said government was spending millions of rupees to improve service delivery in the health sector. The world’s largest 100-bed cardiac emergency would soon be inaugurated at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology, he said. He added that the facility would be equipped with a catheterisation laboratory. Prominent among other public health facilities under construction in the province were a state of the art OPD tower at the Services Hospital and the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI), he said. He added that the PKLI was being set up with technical support from China and Korea.

“Our government will make Lahore one of the best metropolises in Asia. Mega cities need connectivity, a strong economic centre and easy access to workplace,” said Hassaan, also the chairman of the Steering Committee on Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT). Mass transit systems were necessary to achieve that, he said.

He said the metro train project had been started after ensuring that it met environmental standards. He said the facility would cause a significant decline in traffic congestion in the city. The execution of the project would result in generation of thousands of jobs, he said.

Hassaan said between 250,000 and 300,000 commuters were expected to benefit from the facility every day. He said provision of effective means of communication and transportation and sanitation, health and education infrastructure were priorities of the government. He said that on coming to power in the province in 2008 the PML-N government had inherited dilapidated infrastructure and poor transport and sanitation systems in all major cities of the province. He said since then it had started several projects to improve service delivery in these sectors. The establishment of the Lahore Transport Company and the Lahore Waste Management Company and metro bus and trains projects were examples in this regard, he said. Hassaan said in its recent report a Malaysia-based environment specialist had declared Lahore the cleanest city in South East Asia. He said companies would soon be set up on the LWMC model in other big cities in the province. About the Lahore Safe City Project, he said the first phase of the project would be completed by October this year. “It will be extended to six other cities by the end of 2018,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2016.