The Lahore Canal is part of the heritage of Lahore and protected by the Lahore Canal Heritage Park Act, 2013. A meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Heritage Park has been called for 15 May 2014 with three items on the agenda. All three are infrastructure developments along the Canal.
For more background read here and here.
Here's a copy of the meeting notice:
A copy of the agenda:
And here is my letter to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee:
______________________________________________________
Very truly yours,
For more background read here and here.
Here's a copy of the meeting notice:
A copy of the agenda:
And here is my letter to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee:
Saleem, Alam &
Company
Lawyers and Consultants
40 Sarwar Colony, Street
No. 2, Sarwar Road, Lahore Cantonment, Lahore
Ph: + 92 42 3662 1895; Fax: 042 3662 2051; email: rafay@saleemalam.com
13 May 2014
Director-General
Parks and
Horticulture Authority; and
Chairman, Lahore
Canal Heritage Park Advisory Committee
(via email to
shakeeldmg@yahoo.com)
Subject:
4th Meeting of the Advisory Committee Constituted Under the Lahore
Canal Heritage Park Act, 2013
Dear Chairman of
the Lahore Canal Heritage Park Advisory Committee:
I am in receipt of the notice for the
captioned Committee meeting called for 15 May 2014. Unfortunately, I have professional
commitments outside Lahore on that date and will be unable to attend. Due to the serious nature of the agenda
proposed for the meeting, I am submitting my written comments as against the
agenda points so that they may be circulated amongst other Committee members
and recorded as my opinion in the meeting of the Committee.
The proposed agenda for the 4th
meeting of the Committee has been circulated as under:
1) Widening
of Canal Bank Road from Doctor Hospital to Thokar Niaz Beg
2) Widening
of Canal Bank Road from Mall Road to Harbanspura; and
3) Widening
of Canal Bank Road from Harbanspura to Jallo.
You will recall that 3rd
meeting of the Committee held on 24 October 2013 was convened specifically to
consider some TEPA proposals for infrastructure development along the Lahore
Canal. I had taken strong exception to
the TEPA proposals and had also pointed out that further meetings of the
Committee without properly framed rules of procedure would be improper.
A draft of the “Lahore Canal Heritage
Park (Meetings of Advisory Committee) Rules, 2013” has been submitted to the
Committee and the minutes of the 3rd meeting clearly record the
decision of the Committee “that these draft rules must be submitted for
approval of the Competent Authority within a week’s time” (emphasis
added).
It has been several months since and the
Committee has not been informed whether such approval has been obtained and I
therefore operate under the assumption that no such approval has been sought or
granted. I again reiterate that,
regardless of the subject matter to be discussed by the Committee, the proper
way to proceed would be to have these rules notified so that the Committee’s meetings
are in accordance with law.
Convening a meeting of the Committee to
discuss infrastructure projects that have serious financial and long-term urban
planning repercussions is, in the circumstances, a seriously irregularity that
may affect the legal validity of any Committee decision or action. And to convene a meeting of the Committee
without properly establishing rules of procedure or without having first
properly demarcating and notifying the Lahore Canal Heritage Park, invites
suspicion of a desire on the part of some elements to forcibly have
infrastructure developments along the Lahore Canal approved without due
process. I will therefore once again
request you, as I have before, to submit the draft rules for approval to the
competent authority and, only once approved, convene a meeting of the
Committee.
In any event, with regards the agenda
items, may I bring to your notice that construction and infrastructure
development work have been prohibited with regards the Lahore Canal Heritage
Park. At the outset, therefore, the
agenda items are activities that are prohibited under Section 3(5) of the
Lahore Canal Heritage Park Act, 2013 (the “Act”).
I will also point out that under the Act,
if TEPA is desirous of undertaking infrastructure projects that affect the
Heritage Park, it must seek the permission of the Parks and Horticulture
Authority (the “PHA”). Section 5(8) of
the Act sets out the various considerations TEPA must respond to if it seeks
such permission. And I note the notice
and agenda of the 4th meeting of the Committee do not carry any of
the information that is legally required for TEPA to be eligible to make such a
request for permission.
If you nevertheless choose to convene the
4th meeting and table the agenda items as proposed, I will further
submit that the infrastructure developments proposed by TEPA are unsound on
several levels. The history of the
Committee and of the Act is a landmark achievement of law, urban development
and civil society. The Act is a result
of a direction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to declare the green belt along
the Lahore Canal a heritage park. Even
the preamble of the Act declares the green belts on both sides of the canal a
public trust and part of the heritage of the city of Lahore and states that its
purpose is the conservation of the Lahore Canal as a heritage park. Therefore, to expect the Committee, which was
established in the light of this history and with a special mandate to protect
the heritage of Lahore, to consider and approve the destruction of that
heritage is too much to ask.
The powers and functions of the Committee
are, inter alia, to prepare and administer the Heritage
Park. But since the Committee’s
notification, no effort has been made to follow the directions of the Committee
with regards to demarcation of boundary of the Heritage Park and, as discussed
above, notify rules of procedure. The
work of the Committee has not yet started in earnest yet it seems it is now
being asked to give approval for infrastructure developments that it does not
have the power or function to approve and which are, in any event, the very
antithesis of its being.
The infrastructure developments proposed
by TEPA and to be considered on the agenda are, at best, ad hoc
solutions to the traffic problems of Lahore.
Whilst it has spent billions on infrastructure development along the
Canal in the previous decade – haphazard development that resulted in a suo
motu action and eventually the passage of the Act – the city still lacks
a transport master plan. To expect the
Committee to decide on hundreds of millions of Rupees of further infrastructure
developments in the absence of a proper master plan and in the face of repeated
failures of existing infrastructure to “resolve” traffic congestion is severely
misplaced. The Committee has no evidence
to suggest that the proposed traffic infrastructure developments will respond
to traffic challenges in the city as none of the previous examples of
infrastructure development can be shown to be successful. Meanwhile, the Act declares the Lahore Canal
a heritage park. How can the Committee
be expected to sacrifice the heritage of Lahore to such ad hoc
and short-term proposals? The world over
new urban planning practices stress on the need for traffic management, yet the
TEPA has not shown any inking of initiative in this area. Instead, it has proposed the violation of
public trust and destruction of heritage.
TEPA should instead be instructed by the Committee to return to the
drafting board, so to speak, and reconsider its approach to transport issues in
Lahore in a manner that is holistic, sustainable, environmentally friendly,
equitable and democratic.
Under the Act, the Committee does have
the power to advise the PHA on any matter ancillary to the discharge of its
functions under the Act. It is my belief
– and this is the civil society representation I bring to the membership of the
Committee – that the Heritage Park cannot be sacrificed in the manner proposed
by TEPA and I therefore propose that the Committee resolve to advise the PHA to
consider, in addition to the strict requirements of the Act, the history,
nature and role of the Lahore Canal as part of the heritage of Lahore before
allowing any permission for infrastructure projects to be carried out on
it. The Canal is the heritage of Lahore
and needs to be developed so that future generations of Lahoris can also
experience the joy and calm it brings to the residents and visitors to the city
– a joy and calm they share with one another; a shared memory map that connects
Lahoris to their city, to their past and to their culture. And this cultural heritage should be
protected and promoted by the Committee.
I conclude with the opening lines of the
Supreme Court of Pakistan’s judgment in the Lahore Bachao Case (2011 SCMO 1743),
in which Mr. Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani (now Chief Justice of Pakistan)
quotes Ada Louise Huxtable:
Any
city gets what it admires and what it pays for and ultimately deserves. And we will probably be judged not for the
monuments we build but the monuments we destroy.
With best regards.
Very truly yours,
Ahmad Rafay Alam
Member
Canal Heritage Park Advisory Committee
Copies
to:
- PHA (via email to pha@wol.net.pk)
