THIS is with reference to the various news items, articles and letters about Lahore’s Orange Line train projects, and the concerns about heritage sites.

We in the Punjab government and the Lahore administration are advocates of socially and culturally sensitive development.

As hands-on practitioners, we encounter issues that require balancing acts of diverse natures. Among these, the most challenging is striking a balance between infrastructure development imperatives and socio-environmental (cum cultural) considerations.

We are committed to making Lahore a truly world class city. The Orange Line would be the common man’s ride; with cautious estimations indicating a daily total of 245,000 commuters.

The indisputable correlation between subsidised urban transport and poverty reduction make for a compelling case.

The Orange Line will not damage any historical building or monument and none of the interventions going into its construction and engineering will adversely impact our historical and heritage sites.

The much-quoted impact of vibrations impacting existing old buildings is baseless since the vibration level is as low as one-tenth of the permissible threshold. As for the Shalamar Gardens, our team of legal experts is in the process of finalising a plausible and legally sound reply to Unesco’s letter.

The debate on keeping the entire route underground has also been explained. Apart from the exponential increase in cost, there is the compelling argument that the alignment as well as the decision to stay over ground were determined by comprehensive analyses by expert consultants.

As for the concern about the elevated structure impeding the view of historical and heritage sites, on the contrary, this elevated structure provides several vantage points offering spectacular sightings of these monuments, in particular that of Shalamar Gardens.

The concern about uprooting people and depriving them of livelihoods is unfounded since the compensation on offer is better than market-rate calculations.

We have reached out to the segments of civil society that are the main critics of our approach and at some level the project itself. Holding detailed consultative sessions with them separately on Dec 5 and Dec 10 was instrumental in highlighting our viewpoint.

These heritage sites have been victims of unbridled urbanisation which went unnoticed by civil society (and the government of the time).

There is every possibility of handling it in a much better manner this time around.

We are firm believers in urbanisation with a human and cultural face and I hope this response would assuage concerns.

Abdullah Khan Sumbal

Commissioner,

Lahore Division

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2015