The Ravi fiasco

There are severe legal hitches in the much-trumpeted fanfare city project on a riverside near Lahore. The Lahore High Court, while announcing a reserved judgment, has scrapped the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project by pointing out a number of lacunas, and termed it in violation of fundamental rights of the citizens. These are quite serious observations and are in need of being pondered as to how the decorum of law and precedents were so grossly violated in raising such a high-profile real estate project in wealth generation. The court’s repeated referring to unconstitutional measures that were embodied in this project are a sort of indictment, and deserves a thorough probe.

The multi-billion Ravi riverfront project is, in fact, all about the shoddy work while acquiring agricultural lands in a haste, and going on to raise a city by flouting set rules of municipality and local governance. This is, indeed, what the honourable bench has observed after hearing in peace to all the stakeholders. This off-the-cuff exigency mode on the part of few wheeler-dealers has cost the entire initiative, which was otherwise a much-desired project to address the expanding needs of urbanisation in central Punjab. In other words, it lacked a master plan as well as coherence with various civic bodies. The observations make it a case of trampling the set rights of agrarian tenants, too. This is why the court’s directive to return the loan to the tune of Rs5 billion to the Punjab government is worth a thought, as it means a complete pack-up.

The setback with Ravi City is just a reminder as to how unplanned and unlawful even our official bodies are at times, and what drives them is easy money. This leads to not only legal violations but also poses an undeniable life-long burden for such project inmates who continue to suffer on various civic counts. The “China-cutting” enigma is a case in point. Likewise, forceful acquisition of land for commercial purposes and conversion of amenity plots for business are other inherent aspects in our torpedoed urban planning. The Punjab government must revisit the Ravi City initiative and see if it can come up promptly as per law.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2022.

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