Urban development: Government asked to hold ‘lopsided’ Canal Heritage Bill draft

Civil groups say draft would allow govt to widen Canal Bank Road at will.

LAHORE: The Lahore Bachao Tehreek and the Lahore Conservation Society have requested a Punjab Assembly standing committee to withhold the Lahore Canal Heritage Bill 2012, saying it is not in conformity with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Canal Bank Road widening case in 2011.

Imrana Tiwana, the LBT secretary general, and Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer who was part of a mediation committee set up by the Supreme Court to broker a compromise between the government and the civil groups, met with secretaries of several government departments on December 5 and proposed amendments to some of the clauses.

Tiwana said that the secretaries had indicated that the demands were acceptable. She said that she had informed Gul Nawaz, the chairman of the standing committee, about the changes agreed with the bureaucrats on December 5, and Gul had agreed to meet with her and Alam on December 7. “He went silent after that,” she said, and the meeting could not be held.

“The Lahore Canal Heritage Bill 2012 is in violation of the Supreme Court decision. A lopsided and unfair approach has been adopted in drafting this bill,” said Tiwana.



The mediation committee set up by the Supreme Court in the Canal Bank Road widening case also made proposals for the draft bill. Alam said that the fundamental difference between the draft proposed by the Pervez Hassan-led committee and the Punjab government draft of the Lahore Canal Heritage Bill was that the latter gave all control of the area to the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA).

He said that the conservation societies felt that the PHA did not make decisions independently. By giving authority to the PHA, the government could then widen Canal Bank Road at its whim and without any public engagement. Besides, the bill would allow an advisory committee consisting only of government officials to summarily denotify green belt areas along the Canal Bank Road for further widening.

“We proposed that a board of trustees made up of 50 per cent civilians and 50 per cent government officials be formed to consider approval for development projects that could affect the Lahore Canal. This was included in the consensus draft which the secretaries of the PHA, Housing, Legal Affairs and other departments agreed upon during the meeting on December 5,” he said.

He said that they suggested that the Lahore Conservation Society, the Pakistan Environment Lawyers Association, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Pakistan), and three members of the Lahore Bachao Tehreek be made part of the board of trustees, which would replace the advisory board.

Alam and Tiwana have written separate letters to the members of the standing committee and the secretaries asking them not to table the Lahore Canal Heritage Bill draft in the Punjab Assembly in its current form.

Tiwana said Canal Bank Road had already been widened at three points beyond Royal Palm. Residents of Lalpur have filed a writ petition in the Lahore High Court opposing the widening.

“Lahoris are anxious and disturbed. Mistrust of the government has increased after it continued widening of the road beyond Dharampura,” she said.

She said that she was concerned that the Punjab Assembly would hurriedly pass the bill in its current form, since this could be the last session of the assembly before elections. “We just want to hold the bill until the changes are made,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2012.