LAHORE: More trees face axe: Development at the cost of environment
By Zulqernain Tahir
LAHORE, Dec 23: More than 1,000 trees, some of them around a century old, are being uprooted to make way for the Dharampura underpass.
With this fresh development at the cost of environment, the number of trees uprooted during this year alone in the provincial metropolis will rise above 7,000.
Earlier, 6,000 grown-up and old trees were uprooted during the construction of The Mall, FCC, Jinnah and Doctors hospitals underpasses and Ring Road interchange at the Niazi Chowk.
Environmentalists are of the view that the destruction of such a large number of trees in the city will increase temperature, make a loss of natural habitat for the bio-diversity, increase green house gasses' effects and suspended particulate matter (SPM) in the air.
Like the other underpasses, the Punjab Communication and Works department did not bother to get the environment impact assessment (EIA) of this project approved from the Punjab Environment Protection Department.
The EIA is an environmental study and formulation of environmental management of a project. Its purpose is to evaluate the environmental and related social implications (negative and positive) of carrying out a project of any size. It provides alternative ways to carry out the project in case it has an adverse effects on the environment.
District environment officer Tariq Zaman, however, confirmed to this reporter that no EIA had been submitted to the EPD for issuance of NoC for the project. C&W secretary Sabtain Fazle Haleem was not available for comments.
It may, however, be mentioned that cases have been pending with the Environment Protection Tribunal (Lahore) against the C&W and a private firm for not getting the EIA of The Mall and the FCC underpasses approved from the EPD.
Advocate Akhtar Awan, who is also chairman of the LHCBA Environment Protection Committee, said that under section 12 of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997, the EIA of any project was mandatory.
He said the EPD, being an executing agency of the EIA rules in the province, should take legal action against the violators without bothering that they were some government departments.
He said the environmental lawyers would move the EPT against the uprooting of trees during the construction of Dharampura underpass once the pending cases regarding the two underpasses were decided.
"We are not against the development works but if the government ensures EIA of such projects the environmental loss can be minimized," Mr Awan said, adding under an environment rule the government was bound to plant twice the number of trees of the kind it uprooted during a development project.
He said the government had done nothing to plant saplings along the canal in the place of the uprooted tress. The Parks and Horticulture Authority has planted a few hundred decorative plants along the canal in place of the uprooted trees.
On the other hand, the schedule of at least eight trains from Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Karachi to Lahore has been affected due to the construction of the Dharampura underpass. Now re-routed via Faisalabad, the trains usually reach their destinations three to four hours behind their schedule.
The work on the underpass which began about two weeks ago is to be completed in four months. About 20 houses of Mian Mir Housing Colony, one house of the Mayo Gardens, an irrigation house and offices, a fire brigade station, two Wasa tubewells, two houses in Zaman Park will be razed during the construction.
