THE government of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has a knack of sneaking up on the people of Lahore. When the Lahorites are least suspecting it, out comes a grand scheme for their betterment — even if they are unable to see the benefits immediately and even if they continue to debate the merits of a project long after it has been executed.

The people are expected to firmly believe the chief minister’s resolve to turn his hometown into a modern metropolis at par with the most advanced in the world. There are occasionally problems, however, such as the recent hurdle created by the Lahore High Court — to the relief of many.

The high court has ordered the scrapping of an elevated expressway aimed at fast-forwarding the city towards development. A divisional bench of the court that came up with the ruling on Thursday was unable to share the urgency the government had displayed in pressing for the raised road.

Know more: High court scraps elevated expressway project

Hundreds of petitions had been filed seeking to block the expressway. The ruling, which may now be challenged in the Supreme Court, bars the government from acquiring land for the project.

Not only that, the court has questioned the priorities of the Shahbaz Sharif set-up and has gone as far as to advise it to focus, instead, on issues related to health and education.

One important aspect of the court’s censure is where it pointedly asked the government why it failed to have the necessary environmental impact assessment before taking up the project.

That is a clear signal for those in a hurry to turn Lahore into Paris or Istanbul or any other city to follow procedure.

For anyone who cares to listen, let it be said for the umpteenth time that such development schemes are the right of an elected city administration, undertaken after consultation with the people who make up the city.

The whims weigh heavy on the people the government is so obsessively looking to catapult to higher standards of living.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015

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