LDA yet to appoint permanent town planner

LAHORE: Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has so far failed to appoint a permanent chief town planner to regulate and streamline affairs pertaining to illegal constructions.

The seat of chief town planner fell vacant on Jan 1, 2018 and till now the authority has not appointed a senior BPS-19 officer against the slot. Instead, the authority first gave additional charge of this one of the important seats of the LDA to Nadeem Zaidi and later on Thursday the additional charge was handed over to Director Town Planning 1 Ayesha Mutahir, a grade-18 officer.

LDA has banned any kind of new construction on 18 major city roads but construction mafia is continuously violating this ban openly.Commenting on ongoing construction and past alteration of residential buildings, the LDA DG said even under temporary commercialisation, the owners were not allowed to alter original building design, however, in majority of cases, this rule has been violated.

The authority has banned all kinds of temporary commercialisation on the above mentioned roads and this step was taken in a bid to cope up with the problems associated with increasing commercialisation, the DG said, adding LDA will not budge against any kind of pressure while implementing this decision. Commenting on giving additional charge of chief town planner slot to Ayesha Mutahir, the LDA DG said he didn’t have any grade-19 official in the authority. Responding to a question about ongoing construction on frozen roads, he said he will look into the issue.