LAHORE: A park built and managed by the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) on either side of a drain in Gulberg-II has become “temporary” abode for a police station, offices, parking lot for loaders of the contractor working on the road improvement plan in the area and a dumping ground for the trees cut by the Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (Tepa).

PHA Board of Director chairman Iftikhar Ahmad says: “I’m against the destruction of green areas, but feel helpless. This is an issue taken up at the highest level in the province but to be told each time that the urban renewal entails cost.”

“The PHA is told that it can charge the cost of rehabilitation and restore the parks. Things, however, have not been so simple. The University Ground along the Lake Road and the Wahdat Road ground have been prime examples of almost permanent destruction. So is the Doungi Ground on the MM Alam road, which was saved by the court but has not seen the return of the greenery: it is now a parking space. This is an on-going struggle, which the city dwellers can only win collectively,” says Ahmad.

His sympathetic words, however, fail to impress Kamil Mumtaz Khan – a respected old hand on urban development. He thinks that leave alone the finer details, the very character of the city is under threat because of “land grab.”

“There are numerous city development plans written in the 70s, 80s and then at the turn of the century. None of these allowed expansion towards or beyond the airport. All these areas were supposed to be open and green spaces. Similarly, no plan ever spoke about expansion into River Ravi’s flood plains. All those plans claim that the current infrastructure is sufficient to cater for present population and its growth till 2030. So, this new expansion is only for land grab and money minting. Population growth is just a hoax,” he insists.

“The Lahore Bachao (save) Tehreek (movement) would now move to document all greenbelts in the city so that it has precise data mapping and know exactly where, and to what extent, violation is committed,” says Imrana Tiwana of the movement.

She suggests that both the PHA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should also undertake such data collection exercise so that the city dwellers could know what they have and what was being wasted in this development spree and what could be recovered later on.

“We grew up with these greenbelts in the city and this is an attempt to erase our collective memory of Lahore. Having clean environment is our fundamental right, which is being violated on a daily basis,” laments Ms Tiwana.

“This so-called development is double jeopardy -- for our lungs and life by extension,” says Akram Khan, who lives in the area.

“On the one hand, it is creating massive air and noise pollution in the vicinity and on the other destroying natural air cleaning (trees and greenery) system. For the last four months, we have been witnessing this gradual destruction of the park. First, a police station (Ghalib Market Chowki) moved in because its place was taken by another road widening effort. Then some containers followed in which temporary offices were established. Soon, concrete structures appeared to house more offices of the contractor. Then 25 per cent of the park was turned into parking lot for the water tankers being used by the road project. Finally, tree cut from the rod were dumped and the park simply disappeared. Soon, space falling between the park and road became a parking lot for a nearby office and the destruction of park and disappearance of the road was complete. What we have now is a pollution creating, instead of cleaning, park in the middle of the locality,” he laments.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017