Public interest: ‘Environmental watchdog needed to assess impact assessments’

Medical costs will keep rising because of pollution, urban inequality: LBT.


Sonia Malik February 04, 2012

LAHORE:


Pakistan is in dire need for an environmental watchdog to ensure that a proper environmental impact assessment report is carried out for each development project, said Rafay Alam of the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (LBT) on Saturday.


In a lecture titled ‘Public Interest Litigation: Case Study of The Lahore Bachao Tehreek’ at the Quaid-i-Azam Library, Alam explored the public activism and litigation and the government’s response in the Lahore Canal widening project.

He said that the Punjab government had a small development budget, with which it could not afford to lay proper urban infrastructure, and this had led to project-based development instead of planned urban development.

This was visible in the form of underpasses, flyovers and land acquisitions for illegal housing schemes established without conducting EIAs or obtaining NoCs (no objection certificates), he said. He gave examples from Seoul, New York and Boston of highways replaced with parks after the local government re-evaluated the cost of refurbishing them.

Alam showed a map of Charrar village in the midst of the Defence Housing Authority and said that the inequality evident there would be replicated with the rise in housing schemes.

He said if issues of transport and illegal housing schemes were not addressed now, signs of urban poverty would become even more apparent in the future. He said that these urban poor would be mostly made up of migrants from villages, who would get jobs in the city but would end up spending half their salaries on medical costs associated with the unclean conditions at these jobs.

Alam said about 65 per cent of Lahore’s population lived on about 10 per cent of its area. Since Partition, the city’s population had increased by 400 per cent.

By 2050, it would rise by 800 per cent, soaring to 36 million from nine million now, he said. Fifty per cent of Pakistan’s population was predicted to live in cities by 2050, which would put a great stress on already strained urban infrastructure.

He said that in Lahore about 40 per cent of residents walked and only eight per cent used cars. “We are restricting the mobility of a large chunk of the population by catering to only the eight per cent, by only developing infrastructure which facilitates the eight per cent,” he said.

Alam, who initially joined the LBT as a legal consultant, gave an overview of the organisation’s attempts to raise environmental and heritage issues, particularly with regard to the Canal Road widening project.

The LBT organised protests against the project in summer 2006 that gained media attention and a Supreme Court suo motu notice. That case was disposed of after the chief secretary pledged that no development project would be launched without an EIA. As a result, Alam said, more than 50 EIAs were conducted between January and June 2007, compared with 50 between 1997 and 2006.

The road widening project was shelved and the LBT dedicated its attentions to other issues. The Punjab government tried to commercialise 54 streets, but the LBT’s opposition brought the number down to 28, Alam said. In 2007, the Evacuee Trust Property Board decided to convert Adl Nazim Ashram, a historical shelter, and a water tank designed by Sir Ganga Ram into commercial plazas. “We protested and prevented that from happening,” he said.

When the Punjab government revived the Canal Road widening project, the LBT challenged it again in court. The Supreme Court based its verdict on an agreement reached by a committee that included environmental representatives, including Alam.

He said that this agreement had not been in the best interests of the environment. He said the widening of a stretch of the road had only been agreed upon in exchange for an undertaking by the government that it would put more buses on the road. The government also agreed to declare the remaining green belt along both sides of Canal Road a heritage park.

Alam said one lesson that LBT had learnt was to involve as many people as possible to voice concerns and give recommendations. “In this case, we ... reached compromise that isn’t in the best interest of the environment of the city,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5th, 2012.

COMMENTS (1)

Timm | 12 years ago | Reply

Good job.....

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ