Govt directed to stop signal-free corridor project

LAHORE
THE Lahore High Court Justice Mansoor Ali Shah Friday directed the Punjab government to remove all machinery from the road brought for construction of signal-free corridor from Qartaba Chowk to Liberty Chowk.
Stopping the government from taking any step to further the project, the court has directed the authorities to apprise the court of details of the project on March 20, the next date of hearing. The court said only they could facilitate the traffic and nothing else till the next date of hearing.
The court put off hearing till March 20 as the LDA officials informed the court that they had scheduled public hearing on March 16 to know about the concerns of the public.
Then the court asked the LDA officials if they filed any Environment Impact Assessment? They said they did not file the EIA and started the project without it. At this, the court directed them to stop the project entirely and remove all machinery from the site immediately till next date of hearing. An additional advocate general representing the government requested the court not to stop them from continuing its maintenance work of the existing road. But the court said even they cannot touch any portion of the project.
Saad Amir, on behalf of the petitioner Fahad Malik, submitted that the project was in violation of basic human rights other than causing threat to the environment. He said they were going to remove green belts from both sides of the road on Mail Boulevard Gulberg for this project. He said it was planned to cut trees along the road for this project. He said they were also going to acquire private land but no legal course was being adopted in this regard. He said a total 7 kilometer corridor they were going to construct four pedestrian bridges to facilitate the vehicular traffic, the area had hospitals along this road and the government was causing hardships to patients by going with this project. He said by constructing this signal-free corridor, the area would become more noisy causing problems for patients. He requested the court to declare the project as illegal and unconstitutional and grant stay order against the project until final decision.