Lahore electric tram on the cards

LAHORE:

Punjab government is deliberating on launching Pakistan’s first electric tram service in Lahore.

Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar chaired a meeting at his office on Tuesday to review the feasibility of the tram project from Thokar Niaz Baig to Jallo along the Lahore Canal.

He directed the officials attending the meeting to give the final shape to the feasibility report of the the country's first electric tram service without a delay so that the government could proceed ahead with the project.

He asked the departments concerned to accelerate the pace of work on ongoing development schemes in Lahore as they were aimed at providing substantial relief to the citizens.

The chief minister said development in Lahore was important and the government was committed to improving the standard of facilities in the city.

The ongoing spate of development work would improve the quality of life in the city, he said.

Chief Minister Buzdar also announced that a 1,000-bed general hospital would be built along Ferozepur Road near the IT Tower over a 124-kanal area.

He said the previous government had launched development schemes costing Rs67 billion in Lahore during its third year in power, while the incumbent government had launched Rs86 billion worth of projects in its third year.

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He claimed that the previous projects were started without proper planning and the people of the province were facing the consequences as the ostentatious schemes had tremendously burdened the provincial kitty.

"However, the PTI government has designed projects to improve the city’s infrastructure with prudent planning," the CM added.

The vice chairman and director general of Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and the principal secretary to the CM also attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, the chief minister declared in a statement that investigations had been started into the Murree tragedy that left a number of tourists dead and standard operating procedures (SOPs) were being revised to avoid such grievous happenings.

He stressed that those responsible for negligence would be dealt with indiscriminately and action would be taken against anyone found guilty in the light of the inquiry report. Those responsible would not escape punishment, he reiterated and maintained that everyone was saddened over the loss of lives.

Short term as well as long term planning was being done to prevent such incidents in future, he concluded.

CM Buzdar also issued a statement asserting with reference to the foreign funding case that no one could point a finger at the honesty and trustworthiness of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

He said those pointing fingers at PTI had a corrupt past while the ruling party had given proof about every penny to the Election Commission. He said the nation would be surprised if the financial accounts of both the PML-N and PPP were checked.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2022.