LAHORE – The City District Government Lahore (CDGL) and the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) have stopped action against removal of more than 50 unauthorised road cuts traced out on various roads, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Both departments had planned to close all illegal road cuts considered as big hurdles in smooth flow of traffic after Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif ordered in July 2010 that no road cuts would be allowed after completion of new roads and departments implementing development projects should maintain a close coordination.
A CDGL official told Pakistan Today that after new Lahore DCO Ahad Cheema replaced Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta, the issue was hushed up on pressure of a number of petrol pumps and CNG stations, which had allegedly provided access to their stations by cutting road dividers. He said that residents of various colonies along the newly-constructed Lahore-Kasur Road, Ferozepur Road, GT Road, Samanabad Road and Allama Iqbal Road had also managed to get access through road cuts linking inner roads or business premises with the main road.
An official in the DCO Office said that Cheema did not put the matter on the backburner and chaired a meeting on December 22, 2010 and gave one month time to officers concerned to check unauthorised road cuts and encroachments on the Ferozepur Road from the Qurtaba Chowk to Soe Aasal and ordered heavy fine against violators.
“Closures of road cuts are part of the re-modeling project of 11.8-kilometres stretch of the Ferozepur Road from the Qurtaba Chowk to Khaira distributory near the Lahore General Hospital aimed to minimise traffic pressure on adjoining thoroughfares, especially the Canal, Wahdat and Jail roads besides Main Boulevard Gulberg,” the official clarified. Cheema admitted that the action plan was pending due to severe weather condition.
He claimed that instead of 50, the number of illegal road cuts were not more than 12. The DCO said that arrangements had been finalised to close such road irritants in a couple of days. A LDA official said that former Lahore City nazim Aamir Mehmood had also given a one-week notice to owners of CNG stations to close illegal road cuts in 2007 when the All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) threatened to shutdown all stations in the city if the notice was not revoked.
Following the notice, the former DCO had taken action against five owners of CNG stations with illegal road cuts and cancelled their licenses. The former DCO wrote a letter to various development authorities, asking them to conduct a survey of all such illegal access points.
In the letter, addressed to the LDA DG, the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) DG, the Traffic Engineering and Planning Authority (TEPA) MD and all nine town municipal administrations (TMA), the DCO said that owners of numerous petrol and CNG stations had provided access to their stations by cutting a main road, service road or a green belt, which violated clauses 14 and 15 of the NOC provisions required for setting-up a petrol or CNG station.
“Illegal road cuts and passages through green belts obstruct traffic and cause road accidents,” the letter added.
