Lahore Canal Heritage Park under threat

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:

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: 4^th 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 4^th 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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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 4^th 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 4^th 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)

Say a Prayer for Lahore

From The News, 13 November 2009 (http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=208278)


The only thing as incredulous as the recent announcement by the Government of Punjab -- it announced its intention to construct a highway through the heart of Lahore -- was the recent statement of the CEO of Fashion Pakistan Week that their glorified display of clothes was a "gesture of defiance towards the Taliban."

Our fashion industry is as much of an industry as the Holy Roman empire was holy, Roman or an empire. Our designers are talented without doubt; but to suggest that parading scantily clad men and women down a runway behind the bunkers and barricades of a five-star hotel in Karachi is an act of defiance is, well, really stretching the limits to which the "security situation" can make a fool out of us. The foreign media took to the sound bite like a starving man to a steak and now, once again, Pakistan is portrayed as two-dimensional: a country teeming with brave designers, fighting Islamic militancy. My friend and critic Faiza S.

Khan said it perfectly in her column at openthemagazine.com:

"One designer lamentably laid claim to being 'a very brave woman' for displaying her clothes on a catwalk at a five-star hotel in a country where women have been known to be murdered, maimed, mutilated and on occasion buried alive, where girls' schools are routinely attacked and where, even at the best of times, women's rights, outside of a tiny income bracket, are limited at best. Another designer called it an act of defiance in the face of the Taliban, glossing over the fact that fashion shows do, in fact, take place with some regularity in Pakistan, and if one must intellectualise this, then it could more honestly be described as a display of affluence in the face of a nation torn apart by the gaping chasm between rich and poor. Why the foreign media can't ask Pakistani designers questions about their work and why they, in turn, yield to the temptation, like Miss Universe, of providing a sound bite on world peace is beyond me."

Over the weekend, the Chief Minister of Punjab announced that he was allocating Rs3.15 billion for a project to widen Lahore's Canal Road.

The decision can only be described, at best, as a reckless adventure and, at worst, a catastrophe waiting to happen.

In 2006, the Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA) of Lahore Development Agency (LDA) proposed to widen the Canal Bank Road, purportedly to reduce traffic congestion in the city. Because the project was over Rs50 million, the provisions of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act,

1997 kicked in and TEPA was constrained to engage the National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK) to carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project. This was done and the EIA was presented to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Punjab, in a public hearing where hundreds of Lahoris gathered to protest against the decision to deprive the city of one of its last surviving environmental heritages: the 14 kilometres of green belt that line the canal and make the street one of the most unique avenues in the world.

The EPA, Punjab approved the EIA but before the project could go any further, the Lahore Bachao Tehreek (an umbrella organisation of dozens of grass-root NGOs as well as WWF-Pakistan) challenged the veracity of the EIA as well as the approval granted to it by the EPA, Punjab. The case remains pending before the Lahore High Court.

The announcement by the mhief minister, giving the go-ahead for the project "after completion of design", raises some important points.

First, it is clear that the project approved by the CM is not the project that the TEPA had originally proposed in 2006. For one thing, the cost of this new project is nearly five times the cost of the original design. Also, according to news reports, the new project is set to incorporate new features along the Canal Road (like "beautifications" which, I must hastily point out, in the context of roads means nothing).

What this means is that the Government of Punjab cannot use the EIA approval granted to the original TEPA project. According to our laws which, the last time I checked still apply to everyone including the government, road projects in excess of Rs50 million must have an EIA carried out and should be approved by the EPA.

But the observance of legal and procedural formalities is not the primary concern that most Lahoris have about the road widening project. It's an open secret that the Government of Punjab is operating on overdraft.

In such a situation, it would seem bizarre that the provincial government would choose to spend Rs3.15 billion -- nearly 10 per cent of the allocations it made last year to the three heads of health, public health and education -- on one road in one city of the province.

Less than 20 per cent of Lahoris have access to cars. For the vast majority of the over eight million people who try and live and work in this city, transport and mobility are dependent on motorcycles, cycles and what is euphemistically referred to as "public transport" (there are less than 1,000 buses that ply the city's streets). Ever since the previous tenure of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, when the Punjab Road Transport Corporation was shut down, neither this nor the PML-Q government of Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi have spent a rupee on public transport, which, by the way, is the only way to reduce traffic congestion in a city. Now we are told that a seriously broke government is about to spend billions of rupees it doesn't have on a road it doesn't need for people who don't want or use it. Remarkable indeed.

In a presentation made by NESPAK on August 31 this year, the various options of widening the Canal Road were presented to the CM. According to NESPAK, all the road widening projects would "fail" by 2020 -- meaning thereby that if the government didn't do something to invest in public transport, and soon, the billion-rupee road widening adventure is, at best, a 10-year frolic. Is the Government of Punjab serious? Does the chief minister not know that, according to the Punjab Economic Survey of 2005 carried out by the Planning and Development Department (P&D), over 50 per cent of Punjabis live in slums? Who is this road being widened for?

All too often our politicians harbor the mistaken belief that infrastructure development is the only thing that will make our cities "modern"; that infrastructure is the only thing that will attract the foreign investment necessary to bring economic prosperity to a developing nation. But where are the examples of the success of this model? Our own urban Guru, Arif Hasan, in his brilliant essay "The world class city concept and its repercussion on urban planning in the Asia-Pacific region" demonstrates that our preoccupation with a modern city is also the root of our urban decay. But who in the government reads? Thus, one can only pray for Lahore.

Some good news?

Below is a news report indicating the government may table legislation making it more expensive to import the raw-materials needed to make plastic bags. Apparently, it's part of anti-polythene bag legislation that's on the cards. I hope this happens. It would be good news. Taken from The News.

Law on degradable polythene bags shortly

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Islamabad The government would shortly be framing laws to practise use of bio-degradable polythene bags with the Environment Ministry already working on a draft law. The law framed by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) will be soon sent to Law Division for presentation to the Cabinet for approval. Introduction of degradable bags is still pending despite consensus reached between the industrialists and the Ministry around four months backs. It was agreed between the Ministry and industrialists in mid May at a meeting chaired by Secretary Environment Kamran Lashari to start this project for averting environmental hazards caused by polythene bags. But, certain departmental bottlenecks had delayed the early implementation and industrialists yet await a nod from the Commerce Ministry to import chemical for preparing degradable plastic bags. Sources told APP that Commerce Ministry, despite request by the Environment Ministry did not include the duty drawback on import of a specific chemical, meant for preparing degradable polythene bags. Though, it has been learnt that the Commerce Ministry had agreed to include this issue in next year’s (2010-2011) Trade Policy, yet it means delay of another year. Used polythene bags are not only harmful for the environment and sewerage system but also for human health resulting in serious diseases. As part of its efforts, the Environment Ministry had brought the producers to talking table and after agreeing to production of such bags, the producers had sought duty drawback on import of this specific chemical. It was also agreed to introduce degradable polythene bags over the time by not affecting the working of industry and taking care of jobs of laborers attached to plastic bag industry. Although, it was noted that production of bio-degradable plastic bags would raise the production cost by ten per cent, yet the industrialists had agreed to go for it. The National Assembly had also passed a resolution two years back to ban polythene bags. But, it could not be implemented due to association of thousands families to this industry as banning abruptly could have deprived them of their livelihood. “For this, we are going to have proper legislation,” Director General Pak-EPA Asif Shuja Khan informed APP. “We neither want environmental degradation, nor desire industrialists to suffer and off load their employees,” he added. Asif said, law will be given final shape soon and sent to Law division for vetting. He said the initial draft of legislation was circulated among stakeholders and amendments are being made in it, in line with the suggestions and recommendations. It has been found that polythene bags presently used do not degrade till thousands years and badly affect the environment. Used bags were not only choking drains, but their burning in open by different civic departments, was also emitting harmful gases. “The bags to be introduced after legislation, would degrade in minimum possible period,” Asif Shuja said. He said number of experiments were conducted to produce a sample bio-degradable plastic bag and once practiced successfully, it will help improving environment and minimizing health hazards. (from http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=205576)

It's time for October's Critical Mass Event

Join Lahore's 11th Critical Mass Event at 10:15am this Sunday 25 October 2009 from the Fountain Square, Neela Gumbat, behind Bank Square on Mall Road, Lahore.

This Critical Mass cycling event will see us prowling the innards of Lahore where riding a bike offers the chance to sample more of Walled City life without picking a tab.

The thrum of the historic Walled City will lift your spirits as we catch the city-folks going about their morning ritual of Nashta.

Spinning via Anarkali Bazar we will enter the walled city from Lohari Gate and zigzag our way through the maze of Said Mitha, Paniwala Talab, Rang Mahal, Kashmiri Bazar, Chuna Mandi, Sheranwala Gate, and weave our way back from Fort Road, Red Light District, and Bhati Gate returning to Nila Gumbad via Lower Mall.

Critical Mass is about having clean cities that provide mobility and accessibility. Critical Mass is about clean transport. Critical Mass is about putting public good over private interest. Critical Mass is about making friends. Critical Mass is about reclaiming public space. Critical Mass is about showing a man or a woman on a cycle is the same as one in a ten lac car. Critical Mass is about democracy.

What do I need to participate in a Critical Mass Event?

All you need is a road-worthy cycle and an sense of fun. Buy, beg, borrow or steal a cycle if you have to, but join the Mass. Come, cycle around Lahore. Reclaim your city, and have more fun than you can imagine!

Where and how else do Critical Mass Events take place?

Critical Mass events are typically held on the last Friday of each month in over 250 cities all over the world. In Lahore, it is held on the last Sunday of every month. For information about October's Critical Mass Lahore, be at Fountain Square, Neela Gumbat, Lahore by 10:15am this Sunday 25 September 2009 or visit the Critical Mass Lahore Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38992998526) or the Critical Mass Lahore blog.

Important: Be on time!!!

The Kerry Lugar Distraction

The Kerry-Lugar Bill has become the black-hole of Pakistani political debate. Its din of conflicting rhetoric and opinion drowns out everything else. Even good sense. Sovereignty, which reference to any nearby encyclopedia will tell you, is a quality, possessed by a sovereign, of having supreme and complete control over a territory. In light of the KLB (it’s even got its own acronym), we seem to have gotten this concept mixed with ghairat. While all this is most amusing, it is no substitute for meaningful debate about the future of this country.

Too many others have offered their expert opinion on the new American administration’s attempt to change how and whom it funds in this Islamic Republic. It’s mildly surprising how so much of the debate has remained centered on the idea that Pakistan’s “sovereignty” (may Allah bless it and protect it with the Bomb) will be irrevocably tarnished. This is an old debate that has its antecedents in our characteristic dependency on the United States and paranoid concern of what others think of us. I’m surprised that the debate hasn’t moved beyond the hackneyed jingoism we’ve been forced to read and hear these past few weeks. I’m surprised that so little of the debate has dealt with the reality that it’s basically the folks whose names have been left off the payroll who are hopping mad at being passed over. But that just proves that KLB is a massive black-hole of political debate.

While the KLB debate goes on consuming all the air in the room, the real challenges this country faces remain unaddressed. We are a country of nearly 170 million mostly poor and illiterate people that is facing an energy crisis, a population explosion and potential water scarcity. Environmental degradation already costs the economy at least Rs. 1 billion a day and kills hundreds of thousands of us a year. And soon we will be forced to play one of the worst hands Nature has ever dealt man: Climate Change and the water scarcity, food shortages, population migrations, increased incidents of disease and natural disaster it will bring. To this equation, add the variables religious extremism, militancy and terrorism.

And here we are, with this KLB debate, talking of nothing but whether or not it is acceptable for Pakistan to be a beggar and a chooser. I would think that saner counsel (“get whatever you can get and be thankful”) would prevail.

In the next ten years, it is estimated that rural to urban migrations will transform our rustic rural people into an urban people. It’s estimated that, by 2050, as many as 65 percent of Pakistanis will live in cities. The failure of population stabilization policies means that, by then, there will be nearly 300 million Pakistanis. Three challenges immediately come to the fore.

First, where are you going to get the electricity? We’ve got a woefully inadequate installed capacity somewhere in excess of 20,000MW, nearly 25 percent of which is wasted in an efficient distribution and transmission system (a day ago, I read that, “because of forced closures, fuel shortages and some scheduled closures”, the PEPCO system is only generating 11,750MW). The Planning Commission estimates that, by 2030, Pakistan will need approximately 164,000MW of electricity to meet it demands. Of course, at the moment, such an amount seems impossible and if efforts don’t start now to increase installed capacity, improve line-losses and think up ways of jumping to a “smart grid”, the our ability to industrialize our economy will be compromised.

Second, will there be enough water? About 90 percent of our water resources are consumed in irrigation, yet unlined canals, water theft and out-dated farming practices mean that 40 percent of this is lost to inefficiency. The remaining 10 percent of our water resources are consumed as drinking water and for sanitation. Almost all of our water resources are from glacial melt. At Partition, our water resources stood in excess of 5,000 cubic meters per capita. Now, they are fast falling to less than 1,000 cubic meters per capita. The rate at which climate change is affecting glacial melt have surprised researchers, and it is predicted that, after accelerated melting (which means flooding and lots and lots of silt) our glacial water resources will be depleted. This is set to happen in the next 100 years.

Third, will there be enough food? Climate Change, outdated farming practices and depleting water resources will have an effect on food productivity. All of our cash crops are going to be affected by Climate Change. Of course, there will always be mitigation and adaptation, but even if food production can be maintained through science and discipline there is no telling the effect on rural economy and society. Certainly Climate Change will contribute to the great desire of people to move from the labor of subsistence farming to the potential offered by the cash economy of an urban area.

Parenthetically, let me again mention the proposal to lease hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hectares of arable land to certain Arab is a bad idea that hasn’t been clearly thought out yet. Also, how come no one raises the question of sovereignty at the thought that our government was/is to negotiate the lease of such land under the guise of foreign investment? The Lahore High Court has done the right thing, while disposing of a petition filed before it by a farmers union, by requiring any such negotiation be brought to its notice.

An increase in the number of people in cities will put stress on the availability of housing, sanitation infrastructure, employment opportunities, healthcare facilities, educational institutions, transportation services and recreational space. All these are already stretched beyond capacity, but nobody involved in the windbag KLB debate seems to have an eye on what’s around the corner.

The three challenges highlighted above also overlap, in one way or another, with the role of the city. The centrality and importance of urban management in the future of Pakistan must not be underestimated. In the near future, the issues of housing, sanitation, employment, health, education and poverty will all primarily be urban issues. Even issues like energy can be regulated by the of size and manner in which our cities are run. The latest sustainable development initiatives are experimenting with "urban farming" to reduce emissions resulting from the transport of produce from the field onto the dinner-table. Urban areas produce disproportionately large quantities of the world’s green house gas emissions, and for sure Climate Change mitigation and adaptation strategies have huge urban components.

At the moment, our cities are managed by junior to mid-level bureaucrats acting on the instructions of provincial governments (though the City District Government of Karachi, it must be said, is the most independent) that have woefully little knowledge of what makes cities tick. At the moment, they are centers of sprawl, congestion and pollution with rapidly growing katchi abadis and slums. Yet, while these challenges seem insurmountable, they are, in fact, completely manageable. Enrique Penalosa, the charismatic former Mayor of the Colombian city of Bogota who transformed his city in only three years, told me once that the only thing we need to do to start is a vision of the type of city we want to live in.
Now wouldn’t that be a debate worth having?

Pollution in the City

I took this photo on the Mian Mir Bridge while cycling home last night. You can clearly see the atmospheric brown cloud over the city. This is the air we breathe every day.

Lahori generating 6,000 ton garbage daily

LAHORE - Illegal and dangerous practice of burning of solid waste is continuing unchecked in the City. It poses serious health hazards by causing considerable increase in the environmental pollution and the criminal activity on the part of sanitation staff and public at large, mostly scavengers, is also damaging the solid waste containers.

Usually scavengers, gardeners and addicts are held responsible for the unfortunate daily routine but Solid Waste Management (SWM) Department staff is also involved for across the metropolis and the dumping sites. City District Government, Environment Department and the sanitation officials are mere silent spectators, thus encouraging the practice with every passing day.

According to the insiders, the sanitation staff burns the garbage to reduce the quantity that is much higher than the lifting capacity of SWM, as Lahore, a City of around ten million people, produces over 6,000 ton of solid waste daily. As a result, more than 30 per cent waste remains unattended on the roads and SWM workers burn a large quantity to reduce the volume for easy transportation to the dumping sites. Lack of proper segregation and extraction of recyclable material before dumping, is prompting the scavengers and addicts to burn waste for collecting useful material. Almost every 2nd CDGL container is bearing burning scars.

District Officer SWM Mudassar Waheed Malik, however, denies his staff’s involvement. “I cannot appoint a person on each container. The community should come up and cooperate with the sanitation staff to discourage such an activity. Public should immediately inform the department about any such incident so that action could be taken against the culprits,” he replied.

He said new infrastructure was needed for meeting the requirement of a City like Lahore and promised that SWM complaint number, 139, would be written on every CDGL container. But ironically, the number cannot be dialled from mobile sets.

SWM introduced a master plan in 2007 based on Experience Report of Commission constituted by the Lahore High Court on scientific disposal of solid waste in collaboration with private sector, integrated with Master Plan of Lahore 2021 (NESPAK) and SWM bylaws. The main objective of the plan is zero waste society that includes 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

In this regard, Deputy Director SWM Rafique Jatoi says some strategies of the plan were being adopted like performance based wages to SWM workers that has resulted into 100 per cent lifting of garbage. About the burning of waste, he pointed to the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) that lacks waste lifting system, saying it burns the leaves or throw the garbage in CDGL containers.

The SWM is not as much under-resourced as they complain. Increasing the trips of the collection vehicles can enhance the collection, storage and lifting capacity. The containers are left filled for long time, resulting in the over filling and then burning of the waste.

DDO Environment Muhammad Younas says there is a culture of laziness among the government employees and a private firm will perform much better with the available resources. The Environmental Department is very concerned over the practice because it is hazardous not only for the environment also the humans.

He further informed that issues regarding waste burning on dumping sites like Mahmood Booti are also in court, and the Environmental Department is in liaison with the SWM to curb the routine. But there is hardly any change visible.

An integrated effort by the departments concerned to create awareness through media is needed to meet the future challenges because with rising urbanisation and change in lifestyle and eating habits, the amount of municipal solid waste is increasing rapidly and its composition is changing as well. Non-biodegradable waste requires scientific processes for its disposal. However, by developing the recycling industry, the solid waste can be turned into ‘solid wealth’.

by Ayaz Mahmood Khan in The Nation, 5 October 2009 ( http://tiny.cc/GRcfi)

It's time for Lahore's 10th Critical Mass event

Fellow Lahoris, Critical Mass Lahore has survived the summer and has been enjoyed through Ramzan. Now, it's time to rally once more for the cause of public transport, sustainable development, democratic public spaces and, of course, the right to have fun on our own streets!!!

Join Lahore's 10th Critical Mass Event at 5:00pm this Sunday 27 September 2009 from the Zakir Tikka intersection, Sarwar Road, Lahore Cantonment.

Critical Mass is about having clean cities that provide mobility and accessibility. Critical Mass is about clean transport. Critical Mass is about putting public good over private interest. Critical Mass is about making friends. Critical Mass is about reclaiming public space. Critical Mass is about showing a man or a woman on a cycle is the same as one in a ten lac car. Critical Mass is about democracy.

What do I need to participate in a Critical Mass Event?

All you need is a road-worthy cycle and an sense of fun. Buy, beg, borrow or steal a cycle if you have to, but join the Mass. Come, cycle around Lahore. Reclaim your city, and have more fun than you can imagine!

Where and how else do Critical Mass Events take place?

Critical Mass events are typically held on the last Friday of each month in over 250 cities all over the world. In Lahore, it is held on the last Sunday of every month. For information about Critical Mass Lahore, be at Zakir Tikka at 5:00pm this Sunday 27 September 2009 or visit the Critical Mass Lahore Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38992998526) or the Critical Mass Lahore blog (http://cmlahore.blogspot.com/). Important: Be on time!!!

Technology, Political Ideology, the Environment and our Cities

Published as Technology, Ideology & Cities in The News on 7 August 2009

In 1947, when the Electronic Number Integrator and Computer, one of the first-ever computers, began its operations as a calculator of artillery firing tables for the US Army’s Ballistics Research Laboratory, few knew the changes it would herald. ENIAC, as it was commonly known, measured roughly 8.5 by 3 by 80 feet, took up 680 square feet and consumed 150kW of power. No one seriously considered that the “computer” would serve any other purpose but as a calculator for the military or the business world.

The "ENIAC"

In little over two generations, advances in technology have changed computers. In today’s world, the computer is thought of as “personal” or as a “communicator.” It has seeped into every facet of human activity and what we can get done today on our phones, let alone laptops, would have been unthinkable sixty years ago. But what accounted for the huge change in perceptions about the role of computers in society? For example, to demonstrate just how pervasive the notion that computers would remain large, clunky metal boxes, Thomas J Watson, the president of IBM, is famously misquoted as having predicted in 1943 that the world market for computers would be less than the fingers of two hands.

Manuel Castells, the “philosopher of the Internet” and professor of sociology and city and regional planning at the University of California, has suggested that the remarkable changes in the shape, form and function of the computer have been driven by politics, as much as by technological breakthrough. He illustrates by saying that a “personal” computer would have been a political and, hence, technical impossibility in Cold War Russia. The state itself would have been forced to oppose technological advances that promoted private property. Western politics, by way of generalised distinction, has focused more on the individual. No wonder, then, that iPods are icons of individualism as well a particular political ideology.

The environmental and development challenges facing the people, economy and ultimately politics of this country are of epic proportion. Our population is underestimated at 160 million and we have a poverty rate, depending on whether you believe the figures approved by the World Bank or put forward by the Planning Commission, of anywhere from 17.2 to 37.5 percent. At the same time, the scandalous failure of every one of our populations stabilisation policies means that, in as little as the next thirty to forty years, our population is set to double. Rural-to-urban population shifts, motivated by a desire to engage in the cash economy of an urban area, will mean that, by such time, over half of the population of Pakistan will be crammed into its cities.

Our politicians are busy investing in infrastructure in their larger cities. It is their belief that it is infrastructure like roads and underpasses that will provide people the mobility they need to exploit their potential, that it is things like road infrastructure, five-star hotels, fast-food chains and airports that convinces foreign investment that Pakistan is a viable home for their money. But our politicians they have not considered any of the environmental and development challenges facing us. For example, last week, the Government of Punjab announced it was going to be “e-governed” by next year. I’m all for the efficiency of e-government and I’m sure e-government initiatives will bring transparency and speed to bureaucratic inefficiency, but clearly no one has given thought to the energy crisis. How is anything going to be e-governed when there’s no electricity?

Our politicians appear to be concentrating on investing in the infrastructure of large urban areas. Smaller urban areas are ignored, and the lack of investment in infrastructure there often adds to the population migration to larger urban areas. The government, meanwhile, in order to find the energy to run the current model, has been forced to turn to rental power. The recent exhortations of the Minister of Water and Power pleading for people to “conserve more energy” and directing government offices not to use air-conditioners are platitudes at best. The energy conservation we need in Pakistan is beyond the scope of individual actions. What is needed is institutional change. But if we really listen to what people like Manuel Castells are saying, we also desperately need a change of the current political ideology that reinforces environmentally-unfriendly and unsustainable urban growth.

Pakistan’s energy infrastructure relies on sources of electricity large enough to cater to the energy demands of its large urban areas. It’s because our cities are so large and so full of people that we need things as large as dams or massive gas- or furnace-oil based IPPs to provide them electricity. It’s because our cities are so large and energy-inefficient that alternatives like solar, wind and run-of-the-water power will never be able to provide for them. For example, both the cost and the amount of land required to accommodate a solar power station large enough to provide a city like Lahore or Faislabad makes the entire project unfeasible. But the cost and amount of land required for a solar or wind or run-of-the-water power station to provide energy to a city of 200,000 to 300,000 people is totally manageable. Also, the sewage and sanitation requirements of a small city are much more manageable than the hundreds of tons of raw sewage and solid waste a city like Lahore produces every day.

Smaller cities? Cities of 200,000 to 300,000 people! Impossible, some will say. Well, that’s exactly what people said to anyone who suggested, only 60 years ago, that computers could have a “personal” use. In little over half a century – in fact, since the time this Islamic Republic was founded – the ENIAC has shrunk to the size of a Blackberry or iPhone.

And according to Castells, this remarkable change in technology has as much to do with innovation as it does with political ideology. In order to have environmentally-friendly and sustainable cities, we need to have a political ideology that recognises that small is good. It’s an ideology that recognises that public good trumps personal interest. It’s one that respects the person and does not treat one only as an economic entity. It’s one that believes that energy conservation is more important than energy generation.

(You can watch the Manuel Castells interview that motivated this column here)

It's time for Lahore's 4th Critical Mass event

Measures for Clean Energy

Below is an op-ed by Arif Pervaiz of the Clinton Climate Initiative that was published in Dawn

THE world is moving in the direction of a low-carbon economy not because it can afford the luxury — no one in today’s world has spare change — but because investments in energy efficiency and clean energy can create jobs, reduce waste, help revive economies and lower harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming.

Some argue that for Pakistan, whose total carbon emissions are minuscule — measuring less than 0.4 per cent of the global total — reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not a priority.

Wrong. What we should be looking at instead is our carbon intensity — measured in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP. Pakistan ranks in the bottom 14 out of 185 countries for its carbon intensity. Simply put, there are a lot of inefficiencies and wastage in our use of energy.

Actions aimed at greenhouse gas emissions reduction can result in better energy efficiency, less wastage, reduced pollution and improved public health. For these reasons, greenhouse gas reduction or ‘mitigation’ measures are important for us and should be part of our climate change strategy.

There are numerous initiatives that can be undertaken. Quite obviously we need to stem the ongoing haemorrhaging in our electricity system — 40 per cent of the electricity generated is lost. Why don’t the system’s losses get as much attention as talk of installing additional capacity?

Deployment of renewable energy as part of our energy mix has been very slow in coming. We need to devise a meaningful and ambitious plan for on-grid and diffused — district, neighbourhood and household — deployment of wind, solar PV, solar thermal, micro-hydels and other appropriate renewable technologies. The market for renewable energy solutions is emerging, but it needs

more support. Electricity loss reduction and renewable energy are viable solutions that should be focused on.

Another area in need of focus is transport and clean fuel. Rails and buses can carry more people per unit of energy consumed than private cars, but our investment priorities are highly focussed on the promotion of the use of private cars by a small elite. We need to start charging the real cost of car use and simultaneously develop effective mass transit systems. Car use should be taxed higher along with congestion and road-use charges, and car-free days should be introduced to encourage a shift to public transport.

It is important that any mass transit should be based on the local context, rather than technology. Subways and metros might appear attractive but they are very expensive and hard to maintain. Cheaper options like a Bus Rapid Transit System — planned for Karachi — are more appropriate, which partly explains why 80 cities around the world have or are in the process of developing a BRTS.

Mobility needs of the non-car-owning majority will require the building of extensive networks of navigable footpaths and bicycle tracks — this is important also from a public welfare standpoint. Especially when one considers the restricted recreational spaces available to families numbering eight, 12, sometimes 20 who live squeezed into tiny homes in congested localities.

Improvement in urban mobility and public health will have to include measures such as phasing out dirty-and-old buses, and two-stroke engines. Our refineries and petroleum suppliers need to start providing cleaner fuels — low sulphur diesel, pre-mixed fuel for two-stroke motorcycles — which have been promised for long. PSO has taken encouraging steps towards the production of bio-diesel. Production and deployment of bio-fuels — which don’t displace food crops and don’t require much freshwater — should be expanded and taken to scale.

There is vast untapped potential for generating energy using municipal waste. Some work is being done on this in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad, but needs support for wider development. Electricity generation through methane capture (at wastewater-treatment plants), and processing construction and demolition waste for reuse in construction, should also be explored.

Karachi dumps 400 million gallons of wastewater including raw sewage directly into the sea everyday. Lahore and other major cities also dump their untreated waste into fields and water bodies. This egregious act defiles the environment, kills aquatic life, and creates a public health hazard. In many areas around the country, sewage water is used to grow vegetables. Karachi desperately needs implementation of the city government’s Sanitation III project, which promises to put an end to this mindless practice.

Technology and expertise are available to treat all of this sewage water for reuse, and supply it to industry, and for urban farming and parks. The water savings from this could offset the need for large additional investments in urban water supply, provide an opportunity to use precious money for other social and economic investments and improve our environmental capital. We should also look to save billions of rupees by improving energy efficiency of equipment and processes at our water and wastewater utilities — where there is tremendous scope for savings.

Key to progress on realising benefits of a cleaner and more energy-efficient environment will be the institutional arrangements we craft. The main driver of a low-carbon economy will be the private sector, bolstered by the state’s policy and regulatory bodies for environment, availability of easy financing and local and international assistance. To play a meaningful role, relevant NGOs will need to go beyond generic ‘awareness raising’ to organising technical training, fostering linkages with local universities and technical institutions, and bringing in relevant international expertise.

A coherent climate change strategy should be formulated and pursued through a high-level, well-resourced and independent body, e.g. a climate change council, with representation from industry, business, professional bodies, universities, NGOs, donor agencies and concerned government departments, which can guide, direct and support climate change-related activities.

Additional technical and financial support required should come from bilateral and multilateral institutions and from our friends like the US and EU who can structure their aid in ways that promote ‘green’ investments.

Far from being a tree-huggers’ wish list, the actions discussed above have the potential to create thousands of employment opportunities for skilled and unskilled people, revive our engineering and technical institutions, increase capacity and business opportunities for the private sector, upgrade our infrastructure, and save hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing waste. Oil prices might be low now but they will increase again soon, and so it is a question of ensuring energy security for an uncertain future. The private sector and international financial and technical assistance will be important drivers in the move to a low-carbon economy, but it is that all-elusive political will which will determine the pace and extent of the change.

The writer is an environmentalist working on the development of climate change mitigation projects.

anp@hotmail.com

Environment: Untreated waste into River Chenab

Another good bit of environmental reporting by Ali Raza of The News. What we are doing to our rivers is a crime. Not just against nature, but against all the people who live downriver. Pollution like this not only contaminates crops, but poisons the communities who are dependent on canal water for everyday use.
Environment: Untreated waste into River Chenab