Govt claims World Heritage Committee ‘cleared’ project

Representatives say the claim of getting clean chit from WHC is factually incorrect

LAHORE: All 21 countries in the World Heritage Committee (WHC) have accepted Pakistan’s stance that the Lahore Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project will not affect heritage sites, including Shalimar Gardens, claimed OLMT Chairman Khawaja Ahmad Hassaan.

He was addressing the metro train project’s weekly review meeting on Wednesday. He said the WHC accepted Pakistan’s standpoint after reviewing technical data, vibration study, heritage impact assessment report and other research reports, he maintained. The WHC had also rejected negative draft report and suggestions to include Shalimar Gardens in the list of endangered world heritage sites. “Local experts had successfully and professionally presented Pakistan’s case in WHC meeting and convinced international experts of all 21 countries.”



Meanwhile, in a separate news conference held at the Lahore Press Club, representatives of the Pakistan Civil Society Forum and Lahore Conservation Society underscored that the Punjab government’s claim of getting clean chit from the WHC and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was factually incorrect.

Some members of the expert panel, including IA Rehman, Mahmood Mirza and Imrana Tawana, stressed that the provincial government had misguided media that the UNESCO had endorsed Pakistan’s stance over passing of the metro train near heritage buildings. They pointed out the WHC amended its draft decision 2017 on Shalamar Gardens, the Mughal garden complex completed in 1641, and the OLMT project during the 41st World Heritage Committee session on July 8 and decided to give the Pakistan state party another year to comply with decisions of the WHC 2016 to invite the Reactive Monitoring Mission and to submit studies pertaining to Shalamar Gardens and the impact of the metro train project, prior to deciding whether to place the Fort and Shalamar Gardens UNESCO World Heritage Property on the WHS in danger list.



They highlighted the Reactive Monitoring Mission was a statutory requirement of the World Heritage Convention (ratified by Pakistan in 1972) for which the Pakistan had refused to issue visas to date.



It was in no way, they underscored, an endorsement of the project by the UNESCO, nor was it in any way a declaration by the UNESCO that no damage would be caused to the heritage of Lahore as stated by government representatives to the press. On the contrary, it had reminded Pakistan of its obligations to the convention and of its commitment to extend the protective 200-foot buffer zone where construction of the metro train was currently stayed by the Lahore High Court judgment.

The UNESCO had retained its serious concern about damage to the outstanding universal value of Shalamar Gardens by the metro train project, and stated that no construction should be permitted in the Shalamar Gardens buffer zone prior to assessments made by the UNESCO experts.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2017.