LAHORE: The Ravi Urban Development Authority (Ruda) says the housing schemes already developed with 500 houses or the other built-up structures and falling within the territorial jurisdiction of the mega Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project’s phase-I (purple zone) will be regularised in the public interest.

However, there is no plan for those housing schemes developed in the riverbed or the flood plain, according to Ruda Chief Executive Officer Imran Ameen.

“We have made three zones in the phase-1 -- Brown Zone, Green Zone and Purple Zone. In the brown zone, anyone can develop infrastructure as per the needs, standard and specifications of Ruda. The green zone is fixed for the agricultural and forestry related activities, as none of the structures built already would be regularised or approved under the law,” Mr Ameen said while responding to media queries at a programme here on Friday.

“The housing schemes developed or structures including 1,700 small and medium industries in the project area have been put in the purple zone. And yes they all can be regularised,” he said. He said the schemes having 500 houses or other built-up structures would be eligible for regularisation.

The Ruda chief who also heads the Lahore Central Business District Development Authority (LCBDDA) said the schemes falling in the flood plains or the riverbed would be relocated by all means as nothing related to construction of houses or other built-up areas / structures would be taken into consideration.

He said the authority had also written a letter to the local government & community development department requesting it to cooperate for resolving various issues in the huge project area of over 102,000 acres.

Answering a question, he said various foreign investors including the Saudi industry estate had shown interest in investing in various segments of the Ravi project.

He told another questioner that Ruda had obtained a loan of over Rs5 billion from the project with a return period of seven years to run its operational affairs. “But we are hoping to return it to the government by end of this year,” the Ruda CEO added.

Mr Amin said the project also included a media city for those planning to have new offices of media houses in the Ravi project area.

Talking about the LCBDDA, he said the government had initially given a Rs100 million subsidy to run this authority. “But now we feel that we don’t need any further financial assistance from the government as this authority has become self-sustainable having financial resources worth Rs65 billion,” he said.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had laid the foundation stone of the Ravi project in August 2020. The project’s urban design consists of three phases; Phase-I is spread over around 45,000 acres, Phase-II over around 34,000 acres and Phase-III 24,000 acres. Twelve cities have been proposed in phases and these are Medical City, Residential City, Government and Finance City, Innovation City, Knowledge City, Mix Use, Sports City, Tourism and Entertainment, Eco City, Commercial, Urban Farms and Downtown.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2022