Rethink the Ravi riverfront project

While ecological impacts of Ravi river project remain to be seen, its human cost is already becoming apparent

The former government, of Imran Khan, had claimed to champion causes of the common man and the environment. Yet, like many of their predecessors, the PTI also fell prey to vested interests of influential developers and cash-starved provincial authorities by giving the go-ahead to the problematic but lucrative Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project.

Given approval in mid-2020, the proposed 100,000-acre urban development initiative aims to reinvigorate the dying Ravi river by turning it into a perennial freshwater body, while at the same time undertaking massive urban development on both sides of the riverbank. Moreover, this venture has promised to help address many of the megacity’s challenges, including improving waste and sewage management, provision of safer drinking water and catering to the growing demand for housing. The project has, however, been viewed with much skepticism by environmental and other civil society organisations which fear serious ecological damage and severe human displacement being caused by the current design of this project. Environmentalists pointed to the potential danger of changing the flow of the already stressed Ravi river, and encroaching on the river’s floodplains, which could significantly increase the risks of flooding.

Moreover, the land needed for this project is not lying vacant. Instead, over eighty per cent of it is estimated to be in use for agricultural purposes, which in turn provides food to the residents of the city, besides offering a source of livelihood for hundreds of thousands of farmers and agri-labourers. Nonetheless, according to the Ravi Urban Development Authority, which was created to manage this ambitious plan, the proposed project has already drawn $8 billion of Chinese investments. The first phase of RUDP was said to also include a somewhat meager budget of Rs200 million for land acquisition. While longer-term ecological impacts of this venture remain to be seen, the human cost of the Ravi river project is already becoming apparent. According to the Human Rights Watch report released this past month, provincial authorities have allegedly begun evicting farmers.

To help expedite the Ravi River project, the current provincial government is reportedly using draconian colonial laws (such as the Land Acquisition Act of 1894) to help the private developers acquire needed property. Affected farmers challenging the legality of the land seizures are apparently facing intimidation and criminal charges, even though their legal challenges to being evicted are still pending before the courts. The Lahore High Court declared the Ravi river project to be “unconstitutional” in early 2022. The Supreme Court overruled this decision, and merely asked the government to engage in development work on land which had been acquired with the consent of its former inhabitants. Yet, allegations of more land being acquired through coercive means have not subsided. Even those who have been compensated for being displaced complain that they were not paid a fair market share for their property. This claim is not surprising given that government entities have frequently used their power to purchase land in the name of ‘public purpose’ at well below market rates.

Using this unbridled authority to dispel residents and obtain required land for pricy urban development projects has enabled many property tycoons and other vested interests to make a lot of money. Yet, the resulting urban sprawl has come at a serious human cost, and resulted in encroachment on agricultural land, which is not good news for food security. Then there are the lingering ecological threats associated with the Ravi river project which were hardly alleviated by a rushed environmental impact assessment undertaken for this project. Given the massive scale at which this contentious project is meant to be implemented, its resulting human and ecological impacts could unleash devastating consequences which will not be easy to manage in retrospect.