LAHORE: The Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) on Tuesday decided to celebrate spring festival (Jashan-i-Baharan) in the first week of March.

The decision was taken at a meeting presided over by PHA Director General Jawad Hamad Qureshi at Jilani Park.

“The event must be very organised and an opportunity of entertainment for the public at large,” said the DG.

The participants were told that the event would have more than 15 colourful programmes including dog show, cat show, mural painting, story telling, vintage car rally, Sufi night, Mushaira and Chirran Da Chamba.

“There should be no negligence on the part of officials concerned in respect of security and Covid SOPs,” Mr Qureshi said.

LDA: To facilitate the construction sector in line with the package announced by the prime minister and for achieving desired results from ease of doing business (EoDB) reforms, the Lahore Development Authority claims to have served the public despite Covid curbs.

“With the introduction of EoDB reforms and setting up of e-Khidmat Centre at LDA Office Johar Town in mid-July 2020, the authority not only paced up its timely disposal rate but also enhanced its approval rate of the applications received,” a spokesman said in a press release.

He said of 26,222 new applications received at One Window Cell, 24,210 were disposed of during August-December 2020. “In this period, the application approval rate stood at 58pc in comparison to 42pc in 2019.”

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2021