The City District Government Lahore is changing the status of land use which is against the approved Master Plan of the Metropolitan, Pakistan Today has learnt.
According to details, the changes have been made in all the underdeveloped areas of the city, rendering the master plan useless and redundant.
The master plan was approved through a long exercise by techno-legal consents of the experts.
“The expenditure incurred for the plan was Rs 15 million which is proving to be a waste since the CDGL is not abiding by it,” a source told Pakistan Today.
The Ring Road, BRTS, Sunder Industrial Estate, Slaughter House, Baker Mandi and others are some major projects that violate the master plan. Apart from this, category of land use of over 95 percent of the unused land has also been changed through a single executive order.
“These practices confirm that either the master planning authority or the consultants (NESPAK) were not experts and they have wasted the government’s revenue or the government does not know how to implement a plan,” an official said.
“There are rumours that the authorities are remaking the plan with NESPAK and this time the cost incurred would be Rs 30 million,” an official said, adding that the present master plan was valid until 2021.
“Private urban developers are not abiding by the plan. Not only this, even the government departments themselves are not taking the plan seriously. In such circumstances I don’t see the need of making a new plan,” an official said.
“There are many housing schemes which are not present on the master plan. One executive order has changed the entire plan and no advertisement has been made in the newspaper which will cause a lot of discomfort to the general public,” another official said.
