July 23, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 26, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 22: The Supreme Court will initiate a suo motu hearing on a complaint against felling of tree along the Canal Bank Road (along Canal Bank Garden) Lahore from Monday.

Taking suo motu notice on the complaint of Lahore Conservation Society, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had directed the Punjab government to submit a detailed reply to the allegations that the provincial government plans to chop trees along the canal bank road to widen the road.

The matter has been fixed before a two-member bench comprising Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi and Justice Nasirul Malik.

Meanwhile the Punjab Government has already submitted its reply before the apex court stating that so far no decision had been finalised to chop even a single tree along the canal bank road.

Any decision in this regard would be taken in the light of a feasibility report, to be prepared by the Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA). The City District Government would execute the project whenever commenced.

When finalised, the feasibility report would be backed by a complete Environment Mitigation Plan to reduce the impact of any environment degradation, the reply said.

This is being done with an aim to augment the capacity of canal bank road.

Improvement works carried out so far on the canal bank road are only confined to creating additional capacity at the crossings, leaving out the road sections between under passes, which created bottlenecks for speed adjustment of the running vehicles.

Explaining its future plans, the Punjab government in the reply said, it had embarked on a plan of consolidating and improving existing road infrastructure to facilitate market access, mitigate environmental hazards and reduce road accidents through improved road safety standard and provision of connectivity with the national motorways in line with the North- South Trade Corridor Vision of the present government.

Conscious of the aggravated problem of traffic congestion, the government had taken a series of projects of constructing seven junctions on the strategic link of the canal bank road.

The City District Government Lahore went overboard and started marking trees for possible chopping at later stage, which was rather premature as the decision could only be taken after having detailed feasibility.

TEPA has so far prepared a PC-II (project concept) for the appointment of consultants to carry out different required studies before actual implementation of the project. The proposed project falls under the policy and procedures for filing, reviewing and approval of Environmental Impact Assessment report from the Regulatory Authority.

A Socio-economic survey would also be conducted of all project-affected communities while the consultant would arrange stakeholder consultations through Participatory Rapid Appraisal method.

These techniques involve organized meetings and interviews with the project stakeholders including affected people, local people representatives, government agencies and members of NGOs working in the area.

In order to overcome the traffic and environmental problems, the provincial government has tasked the TEPA to carry out feasibility study of the plan to augment the capacity of canal bank road and the project would be executed through the City District Government, it said.