LAHORE: The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has completed the maps’ classification of the University of Punjab (PU) and three housing schemes — New Garden Town, Faisal Town and Allama Iqbal Town.

Officials say classifying the PU map has been done keeping in view the recent construction of a new road linking Canal Road (from Jinnah Hospital’s underpass) with Wahdat Road through varsity and the future commercialisation along either side of the road.

The areas’ maps classification has been done under chapter-II of the rule-3 of the LDA’s land use rules-2014 (amended) under which the authority is required to classify the land in an area or any part thereof into one or more of the classes of land — such as residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, mixed use, peri-urban, special development zone, agriculture and notified area.

According to minutes of a meeting of LDA governing body, the new classification of the PU, Garden Town, Faisal Town and Iqbal Town has been approved.

“Under the rules, the authority is required to prepare a land use classification map of the area through satellite imagery, digitize the satellite imagery and use it base map for the required field survey,” reads the minutes.

The classification was done after collecting the approved schemes’ plans, dividing scheme area into various classes of land, marking the plot converted from residential to commercial use lawfully or unlawfully, marking the plot/site converted into commercial use temporarily lawfully and mentioning the urban blocks on the basis of predominant land use.

“After following the procedure, classification of maps of the aforementioned areas/schemes were prepared and placed first before the scrutiny committee under Rule-22 of the land use rules-2014 for its recommendations.”

According to an LDA official, the classification or reclassification of maps concerning housing societies, commercial and other sorts of the city areas helps the government know previous and current situation related to land use status.

“Suppose if a plot of any nature in any scheme is appeared to be vacant in the previous classification, the government could see its fresh status in the new classification. And if this plot appeared to be possessed unlawfully under new classification and the matter goes to the court, the case will be decided on the basis of new classification and the new survey,” the official explained on Tuesday. He said besides these schemes, the officials were also busy completing maps’ classification of other schemes.

DIRECTION: Commissioner Abdullah Sumbal on Tuesday sought completion of development schemes in time under a phased programme. At a meeting, he said continuous monitoring and regular review would help a lot to complete the development schemes on time.

HELD: City District Government of Lahore’s price control magistrates on Tuesday got arrested 22 shopkeepers for overcharging and hoarding in open markets of the city. According to a spokesman, they also imposed a fine of over Rs105,000 on others. A CDGL public health department team on Tuesday killed 178 stray dogs through gunshots and poisonous food.

Published in Dawn March 11th , 2015

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