World Bank to help promote green buildings in City

LAHORE:Commissioner and LDA DG Muhammad Ali Randhawa met with a World Bank delegation at LDA office here on Thursday. The delegation included Charles Schneider, Senior Private Sector Specialist and Reshma Aftab, Private Sector Specialist. A special meeting regarding Green Buildings was held under the chairmanship of Commissioner Muhammad Ali Randhawa. The delegation of World Bank, MCL and LDA officers also participated in the meeting.

In the meeting, it was agreed to take steps with the support of World Bank to promote green buildings in Lahore. It was decided in the meeting that the private sector, builders and other stakeholders will be brought to invest and promote green buildings. The World Bank experts will also provide technical support and training to programme officers for the promotion of green buildings. The commissioner and the DG briefed the delegation that the ratio of rooftop gardening has been increased to 50pc in the LDA rules. Existing properties are also being encouraged to install solar systems and rooftop gardening.

Awareness campaigns were also being conducted to promote green building, rooftop gardening, and plantation among the citizens on regular basis. Plantation drive is also being launched in private housing societies with the support of LDA. Chief Town Planner Shakeel Anjum Minhas gave a briefing on the steps taken by LDA in the meeting. DG Ali Randhawa briefed that PHA, MCL, Department of Forestry, Agriculture, LDA and other departments are working jointly to promote the greenhouse and plantation campaigns and concrete steps are being taken in this regard. CEO MCL Ali Abbas Bukhari, Director Development Lahore Division Javed Chauhan, Chief Town Planner Shakeel Anjum Minhas, Director Admin, Director Headquarters Asif Hussain, Director Law Qasim Bhatti, Director Finance Kashif Imran and other officers were present in the meeting. Later, the commissioner paid a surprise visit to LDA One Window Cell. He reviewed the performance and attendance of the staff posted at One Window Cell.

He inspected the performance of senior citizen desk and overseas counter during the visit. He directed the Director One Windows to solve the problems of overseas Pakistanis coming to One Window on priority basis. Special attention should be given to save the valuable time of the citizens. He said that the officers should consider the problems of the citizens as their personal work and ensure timely measures to solve the issues. He stressed that failure to provide better services to the citizens will not be tolerated. Additional DG Housing Shahmir Iqbal, Additional DG UP Syed Munawar Bukhari and other officers were also present.