Lahore: Unhappy residents

EDITORIAL : Daily Times The residents of Model Town, Lahore, are fuming. It appears the Punjab government, Model Town Society and City District Government Lahore have chalked out a plan to ‘commercialise’ Model Town by building theme parks, restaurants and shopping arcades in place of the lush green parks and green belts that Model Town is well known for. More than 1,000 residents of Model Town held a protest demonstration on Sunday from Central Park to Ferozepur Road, holding up placards under the banner of ‘Movement to Save Parks’. These residents are infuriated that their home, which is one of the few societies in Lahore to be blessed with green areas and recreational parks, is being despoiled in the name of progress. It is obvious that the Model Town Society has a huge part to play in this entire affair. There seem to be a few individuals in this society who have failed to follow procedural norms such as consulting Model Town’s residents, addressing their concerns, planning and strategising how to most effectively go about this sort of ‘development’. Such haste can only spell one conclusion: there seems to be plenty of money to be made when it comes to projects such as these and, for a few elements within Model Town Society, this seems to be the prime reason behind pushing forward with this venture instead of sitting down with the residents of Model Town and coming up with an agreed plan. Now the residents are angry. They feel cheated and deprived of the right to make informed decisions about where they live, which this is their right. They should be allowed to have a say in what happens to their neighbourhood/society. Lahore has already been a maze of dug up roads and inefficient alternative routes, and the citizens have been subjected to extreme inconvenience for the last one year due to the construction of the Metro Bus Service. Now Model Town is about to go the same way. The concerns of the residents of Model Town must be addressed and, if any objections arise, carefully looked into. If Model Town Society fails to reach a consensus with those who live there, it is advised that all plans for this commercialisation be dropped. There is a huge probability that if such ill-advised plans are allowed to go ahead, the residents could take their grievances to court and, if recent cases are anything to go by, the superior courts are inclined towards protecting the environment from dastardly plans to ruin it. There has to be some appropriate urban planning, with the citizens fully consulted and made to feel as though they matter. Model Town Society should remember this.