SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
CM Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has earned fame as an administrator whose main focus is infrastructure. Construction of flyovers, underpasses, Metro roots, widening of roads etc are at full swing in Punjab. All this is happening at the cost of the environment by cutting trees and dismantling public property and heritage. A full bench of the Lahore High Court the other day, while allowing over one hundred petitions, scrapped the elevated expressway project from Qartaba Chowk to Liberty in Gulberg in Lahore. The court has ordered the Punjab government to follow proper guidelines before launching the project and acquiring land and property for the purpose post haste. The counsel for the Punjab government argued that it was a public welfare project but he failed to justify why utmost urgency was being paid to the completion of this road. The construction of a signal-free corridor at the cost of Rs 27 billion while showing apathy to more important sectors like health and education provides some insight into the government’s priorities. In its urgency to get the project completed, the government has put all rules and regulations on the backburner, leading to the suspicion of the involvement of some vested interests. Despite the construction of a large number of underpasses, signal-free corridors, excessively wide roads and an elevated expressway on the Ferozepur Raod, there is no end to traffic gridlock on almost all city roads. A lack of proper planning and inherent flaws have made all this infrastructural development less than beneficial.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
