LAHORE, Oct 29: The city district government will soon restart development works in Harbanspura Gowala Colony modernization project, it is learnt.

The authorities concerned had been directed to prepare an action plan and implement it after approval from the district Nazim, sources said on Monday.

Handling the project as a self-generating commercial scheme would be the main feature of the action plan. Its implementation would cost Rs4 million.

The revenue generated from the project would be spent on its further development to make it a model colony, they added.

The city government, they said, would bear only 10 per cent cost, 20 per cent of the expenses would be collected from the community, while the share of the PRSP would be 70 per cent.

For revenue generation, a fodder market would be established in the colony which would also facilitate the occupants in getting fodder for their cattle from “next door shops,” the sources said. Licensing of milch cattle would be another revenue generation source, they added.

The action plan suggested that the executive district officer (revenue) should be assigned the task of recovery of dues from the occupants and removal of the illegal encroachers who had even constructed big bungalows there.

The sources said at least Rs60 to 70 million could be collected from the Gowalas as recovery of lease money and development charges.

The construction of a sewerage system and buffalo ponds was also included in the “Integrated Development Plan” for the colony. Establishment of a fish farm and a community market, commissioning of a bio-gas plant and extensive forestation in the area had also been proposed.

It also suggested screening of tuberculosis and brucellosis in the milk and meat of the cattle being kept there to improve the public health status, besides modernization of the dairy sheds.

The defunct Metropolitan Corporation Lahore had acquired 1,140 kanal land for the Gowala Colony from the Board of Revenue (BoR) on 50-year lease in 1980. A total of 612 plots, one-kanal each, were developed out of which 506 have been occupied — 380 by Gowalas and 126 by non-Gowalas. As many as 106 plots are still lying vacant in the colony established for 16,000 animals.

Since its establishment in 1980, not a single penny has been recovered from the occupants in terms of lease money or development charges. The occupants are reportedly selling the plots against hundreds of thousands of rupees without any legitimate right.

The colony has also been converted into a residential locality, which is against the lease terms, while in the absence of a proper sewerage system, it looks like a marshy area.

The animals being nurtured at the colony have reportedly caught highly infectious Zonotic diseases like tuberculosis and brucellosis due to unhygienic conditions there.