“It has simply been a doomsday experience for us, life simply stops,” says Zaheer Ahmad Khan when asked about the Orange Line Metro Train (OLM) project. Khan, who lost his ancestral home due to the OLM project, is one of the many residents in the Mauj Darya area to have lost their properties.

Khan is far from the only Lahori to express his discontent at the new mass transit system. No project in the city’s recent history has courted so much controversy. From historians and architects who feel the planned OLM route will destroy the prized heritage of the city, to business owners who have faced losses and home owners who have had to relocate because of the project, the OLM has become a symbol of all that can go wrong in a project of such scale.

The OLM has reportedly drawn a hundred protests just between August 2015 and February 2016, has inspired countless petitions and bitterly divided Lahoris. Opposition parties such as the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, the PPP and Jamaat-i-Islami, seeing a political opportunity, joined the bandwagon and have set up protest camps and complaints cells at different locations along the track.

However, the government argues that for a city of 10 million people, an extensive mass transit system is needed and that the benefits of the OLM outweigh the costs. Officials point out that an estimated 500,000 commuters or five percent of Lahore’s population shall be served by 2025. In addition to the recently constructed Metro Bus system which currently serves 150,000 people, 6.5 percent of Lahoris shall have access to public transport.

Will the Orange Line Metro Train transform Lahore for better or worse?

“It is a turning point in the history of the country,” Sharif said at the loan-signing ceremony for the project. The OLM, the chief minister pointed out would “ultimately provide modern means of transportation to 500,000 people, and on average add 39.38 billion rupees to the provincial economy every year and bring conceptual change to the way people perceive means of communications by shrinking the current 150-minute distance to a mere 45 minutes.”

All that glitters is not gold

The success story touted by the Punjab minister, however, turns out to be more elusive on closer examination. Opponents and critics of the project emphasise that the OLM is expensive — the annual cost is estimated as 25 billion rupees — and the high bill isn’t justified.

Maryam Hussain, a social activist who opposes the OLM project says that in the next 20 years the Punjab government will have to pay back 160 billion rupees (around eight billion rupees a year) along with a mark-up of five billion rupees. Some urban planners say that a further 12 billion rupees might be needed to subsidise the OLM to make it affordable for the average commuter.

Hussain feels the money could be better spent on other sectors — such as education or health — instead. “Compare this single development project with other social services and the folly leaves everyone speechless,” says Hussain.

According to the social worker, the education budget has declined in the past three years from 26 percent to 18.60 percent of the province’s budget. “In 2015, 32.80 billion rupees were allocated for education development but the actual spending that year was paltry 14 billion rupees. This year, 43.83 billion rupees were set aside for the healthcare of Punjab’s entire 100 million people,” she says.

She also wonders why the government could not have opted for another bus system similar to the recently built Metro Bus. She’s not alone — many critics and opponents say that the OLM is an ill-conceived project.

The 27-kilometre Metro Bus cost 1.1 billion rupees per kilometre or 30 billion for the whole system. The OLM on the other hand will cost 7 billion rupees per kilometre and the estimated cost for 27 kilometres will be over 200 billion rupees. Opponents have pointed out that the Punjab government could have opted for a bus system instead which would have been far less expensive and disruptive.

Caught in the Middle

Aside from the ballooning costs, critics emphasise that the decision to route the OLM through high-density historical areas of Lahore is unwise. Historians and civil society organisations are particularly concerned about the damage the construction of the mass transit system could do to historical landmarks and heritage sites. (They have secured stay orders from the Lahore High Court against construction at 11 heritage sites and vigilantly monitor any violations around them. The legal case has now reached the Supreme Court.)

“What kind of city does the political leadership visualise three decades down the line?”

Residents living in the old hist-orical districts of the city and bus-iness owners have also been badly affected by the poorly planned mass transit system.

A civil society activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, points to the number of residents who have been displaced with little or no compensation. “Who designed a project through the most heavily populated parts of the city, where the population density is 28,000 to 34,000 per square kilometre, as well as centuries-old business hubs?

And why?”

The activist points out that an estimated 500,000 shop owners and residents could be affected due to displacement or the disruption caused by the construction.

According to him, what makes the issue of displacement even more serious is that most people who would qualify for compensation by the government may not get it. He emphasises that those residing in the older areas of the city have been living in their homes for generations and don’t have the legal paperwork that protects them from being evicted without compensation.

“In the old Anarkali locality, one of the most congested two-kilometre area, 2,700 registered voters lost their homes. Add their dependents in the tally and numbers swell many times,” he says.

The activist further adds: “To clear the route for the project, even the Punjab Land Acquisition Act 1894, which was designed for the East India Company by a monarch, is being shamed. People residing in their hereditary homes for centuries are hardly supposed to have details of ownership in legally defendable way. The poor compensation is also an issue.”

Khan, who lives in the Mauj Darya area, one of the many areas affected by the construction for the OLM, is one such resident.

“My grandfather moved into the area even before Partition and no one in our 20-member extended family possesses a legally binding ownership record,” he says. “Out of 20 people, only one man, who had utility connections in his name, got whatever small compensation the government granted. The rest were thrown under the open skies.”

“If the average compensation is calculated, it is not enough for a few yards of land — leave alone a roof. With our homes gone and no money, one can very well imagine what’s left of life,” laments the Mauj Darya resident.

“Almost the entire range of businesses has suffered badly on the Multan road in the last five years,” says Haji Muhammad Ikram, who owns a furniture showroom there.

Five years ago, the Punjab government started the reconstruction of the dilapidated road. It laid utilities pipes — blocking access to shops and showrooms — and then further construction required the entire road to be blocked and the traffic to be diverted. Businesses more or less shut down due to the inaccessibility for potential customers. The road opened again to traffic but in less than a year, the road was dug up again for the OLM.

“Obviously, no business can survive for years without customers. Underground trains could have added to the business by facilitating customers, the overhead train has blocked them,” he claimed.

The loss to business owners could amount to billions of rupees and vendors and shop owners are upset that it’s a loss they won’t be compensated for.

According to research conducted by Raheem-ul-Haque, a professor at FC College and a senior research fellow at the Centre for Public Policy and Governance, the loss to showrooms, shops and roadside vendors on the GT and Multan roads — in just the six-month period from January to July 2016 — was 21 billion rupees.

Haque says that as parts of the roads have been built, around half of the vendors and shops have resumed business but many vendors still haven’t been able to get back to business as usual. The professor estimates that the estimated loss could have risen to 30 billion rupees by now.

Khawaja Ahmad Hassan, who chairs the Steering Committee monitoring the construction of the project, says that the OLM will bring about a benefit of 39 billion rupees and will make the city greener.

“Lahorites make over 12 million trips — 4 million short walking trips and 8 million motorised trips — every day,” say Hasan. “Just imagine how many vehicles would be taken off the roads once this train starts operation. It is an environment-friendly project, not the other way round.”

All is not lost...

A commuter, Zulaikha Bibi, who daily travels 20 kilometres of the 27-kilometre Lahore Metrobus Service is also looking forward to the OLM. “It used to cost three hours and 200 rupees to travel to and from Ravi Road to the General Hospital, where I work. Now it is a matter of just over an hour and it costs me 40 rupees,” she says.

So what does she feel about the OLM? “For the worst affected, the government can, and should, grant generous compensation. But development can’t be halted due to the problems for a few,” she insists.

Noted lawyer Saroop Ijaz, however, feels that in the end OLM is about what kind of city Lahoris want to live in. “When the canal road was widened, thousands of trees were cut down. Signal-free roads exclude pedestrians or cyclists. Overhead concrete structures — metro bus or now train — are disastrous for the city’s environment. Would Lahore be a heritage-less city like many in the Gulf region? Would it rival Beijing in pollution terms? What kind of city does the political leadership visualise three decades down the line?”

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 19th, 2017