Public demand: ‘Make Orange Line loan terms public’

Opposition alliance continues protest against metro train

LAHORE: The opposition alliance on Tuesday reiterated its demands regarding the Orange Line Metro Train (OMLT) project.

In a five-point resolution presented at a protest rally on The Mall, the alliance asked the government to make public terms of the loan agreement signed for the project with the Exim Bank of China.

Other demands were use of tunnel boring technology for construction of the track, payment of compensation at the market rate plus a 25 percent premium and assurances that funds allocated for social sector projects would not be diverted to the OLMT project and no heritage site would be affected.

The rally started at the General Post Office (GPO) Chowk, the site where the OLMT track goes underground.

Workers of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the Pakistan Awami Tahreek (PAT) and the Majlis Wahdat ul Muslimeen (MWM) were in attendance.

The marchers also included lawyers, and civil society representatives including members of the Lahore Conservation Society.

The alliance leader said that central leaders of their parties would lead the protest in the next stage if the government failed to meet  the demands.

Speaking at the rally, Leader of the Opposition in the Provincial Assembly Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed said opposition parties were not opposed to development projects. “We support infrastructure development that is meant for welfare of the masses,” he said.

He said the government was concealing information about the OLMT project. He said the government would be spending billions of rupees on the project. Why couldn’t it then pay fair compensation to those evicted to make way for the track?

“Diversion of funds from other projects for construction of a metro train is not acceptable,” he said.

Rasheed said that the money allocated for the project could instead be used to construct nearly 25,000 new schools, 500 new hospitals and at least 100 potable water schemes in the province.

PPP’s Samina Khalid Ghurki and JI’s Dr Waseem Akhtar said that they suspected that the government was diverting funds earlier allocated for schemes identified in southern districts to the OMLT project.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2016.