Harking back: ‘Riverfront’ plan might see money flow, not water

The River Ravi, known thousands of years ago as the Iravati, is synonymous with the ancient Walled City of Lahore. Not so very long ago the river lovingly curled around its walls and headed southwards. The people and the river have always had a love affair.

But things changed when during the early British days the river changed its course. It was a natural phenomenon known as meandering. Parts of the old river formed smaller portions which dry over time. The ‘Buddha Ravi’ on Ravi Road was one such place. This is known as an ‘oxbow lake’. Humans have over time tried to use the river, primarily for commerce and agriculture, and when conditions allowing for pleasure. So has been the human interaction between Lahore and its river.

Lahore’s population in 1947 was a mere 700,000. The tragic happenings of Partition saw over 300,000 non-Muslims leave. In came countless refugees in pathetic conditions. By 2020 the population – officially - stood at 12.64 million, an annual average increase of 23.7 per cent, one of the highest in the world.

Few cities in the world have faced such pressure. The end result, as we all know, was that government institutions virtually collapsed. Tragically, a ‘Claims Culture’ set in leading to unstoppable corruption becoming part and parcel of normal life. Today being honest, or telling the truth, is almost a sin. The sheer numbers mean that today Lahore is the world’s eighth largest metropolis. We have seen organised public transport collapse, having underground trains is a mere dream, no local government is allowed, and our police force is so thin that law and order is seriously compromised. Within these conditions the city continues to expand consuming the finest agricultural lands. This piece is about this expansion.

The initial thrust was towards the south-east and we have in the early 1960s the Gulberg and Shah Jamal colonies. Then mostly illegal dwellings moved beyond the once-beautiful Model Town. Within the city ‘katchi abadis’ continue to grow. Over time public pressure gets them ‘regularised’. Money irons out all irritants. Then the city creeped along the Lahore Canal and today touches the edges of Raiwind, which is 43.9 kilometres from the old city of Lahore. On the south-western side the city shot towards Sheikhupura, which is 57 kilometres away. On the western side is Gujranwala which is 96 kilometres away. In short from one end to the other Lahore is over 100 kilometres diagonally. So we have a massive 76,000 square kilometres of an urban swelling that just seems to grow and grow horizontally.

In such circumstances the Punjab government has decided to build a River Ravi Riverfront Development Project over 45,000 acres along a 33 kilometres length of the river starting from Ravi Syphon to Balloki. The plan is to sell off 25,000 acres on both sides of the river banks at ‘attractive’ prices to pay for the project. Mind you if this was sold for a mere Rs1 million a kanal, it would bring in Rs250 trillion, or Rs 25 ‘kharab’. Imagine.

This riverfront story has a very interesting origin, two false starts, and now a fourth rebirth. The seeds of this idea were originally put forth by the first DC of Lahore in August 1947, Mr. Zafarul Ahsan, a genius who set up the Lahore Improvement Trust and built Gulberg and Shah Jamal and much that we see of Lahore. The committee comprised the finest citizens of Lahore and the initial idea was to build a ten-mile riverfront that would lead to a replica of the old walled city perched on high ground to avoid flood water in the monsoons. It was to be named ‘New Lahore’, quite in line with New Delhi in India.

Plans were drawn and the names of eight gateways suggested. It was to be walled and roads would lead to a new truck and bus stand near it. This would pull away the growing commercial markets from the old walled city, take heavy-duty vehicles out of Lahore and give a boost to industrial estates around Lahore. That plan soon went into cold storage because after the Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan lost the Ravi to India, and the entire riverfront concept collapsed. Today we all know that the Ravi is a cesspool of chemical waste water from industrial factories on both sides of the river.

So then what is this new Ravi Riverfront project now that the river is a trickle of chemically polluted water? Just like the housing schemes that abound every few hundred yards all over the city, this is an ambitious LDA plan, which it seems will have a separate organisation to handle all the land and the oodles of money that will be flowing in. To have a 33-kilometre long river front is a bit of laugh, especially when there is not enough water in the Ravi.

The 45,000 acres of prime agricultural land that will be acquired by force, will mean that high-quality fruits and vegetables flowing into the city will be drastically cut. It will also mean that the Jahangir-era rose cultivation fields along the river will be lost forever. It will also mean the world’s finest guavas orchards will be cut down. This tragic list is endless.

Some of the finest architects and town planners of Pakistan are afraid that this ‘money-churning’ scheme will destroy the very character of the old walled city itself. The immediate sufferers will be the ‘changar’ dwellings along the river banks, people who have been here for thousands of years, and from whom the gypsies of the world originated.

But let us not point out a few negatives among the hundreds that will prop up. Let us put forward a few suggestions, or conditions, that surely should be met before such a wild scheme opens the floodgate of money secretly being exchanged.

Firstly, the planners must make sure the truck and bus stands at Badami Bagh are relocated near this ‘new Lahore’. Secondly, in a slow planned manner the markets inside the old walled city should be moved out to bigger and more accessible markets near this ‘riverfront’. These should be fed by the new truck and bus stand on the western side of the river. Inside the old walled city only 15 per cent of the localities should be allowed to be run for commercial purposes.

If there is to be a gainer let it be the old walled city for tourism purposes. This means that all trucks and buses inside, or near, the Lahore of today should be banned. Only then does this ‘riverfront’ dream make sense.

As far as the current river is concerned normal river water no longer runs in it. At Ravi Syphon the quality is fine. Even at Mahmood Booti it is acceptable. Then all the poisonous industrial waste water is added to it. By the time it is six miles from the Ravi Bridge it is enough to kill a human if drunk. There is no scheme to cleanse this water. One ‘airy fairy’ scheme has been promised in the initial papers, but everyone knows this is a bluff.