Four plazas in Lahore partially demolished

LAHORE:Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) has partially demolished four illegal plazas inside Masti Gate along with complete demolition of encroachments here Friday.

The operations against illegal constructions especially plazas were launched by WCLA during Ramazan this year and now the operations would be carried out on daily basis. The operations were carried out with the support of local police and the staff of Building Control Department of WCLA.

In the recent operation against the illegal constructions inside Walled City, Lahore, the partially demolished properties were F-2164 (Malik Arshad Plaza in Kotwali Chowk), C-1873 (Plaza in Gulshan Street Masti Gate), C-1876 Plaza in Gulshan Street Masti Gate) and E-46 (Plaza Shah Almi Morr inside Shah Almi Gate). Besides, four temporary encroachments were completely demolished which were located on the main drain line of Akbari Gate, Thara in Wacho Wali, Quarter 4 behind Tibbi Thana and Choori Bazaar.

Over the past two weeks 11 plazas have been partially demolished, three permanent and four temporary encroachments in different parts of Walled City, Lahore, have been demolished by the Building Control Department of WCLA. These operations were spearheaded by the Director Conservation and Deputy Director Building Control WCLA along with police force. Director Conservation and Planning, WCLA, Najam Saqib said that as per the Section 32 (2b) of WCLA ACT 2012, these operations were being carried out to erase the illegal constructions from the city. He said that WCLA would be starting demolition on daily basis from this week. He mentioned that these operations are giving an aggressive message to the plaza mafia and illegal property owners and more operations would make an impact in controlling the new illegal constructions.

“We are moving randomly to different parts of the city and are also prioritising the illegal constructions to be demolished. So far we have been partially demolishing the plazas but now we will be moving forward to complete demolition of all the illegal plazas. We have listed the illegal constructions which are a threat to the neighbourhood and historic fabric and those are on our hit list.

All the operations are in accordance with the WCLA Act and we did issue the notices for personal hearings and map approval to most of the illegal property owners. This is an ongoing process now and we will not be sparing any illegal construction inside the walled city, and our team is on aggressive surveillance to keep a check on illegal constructions which take place at night, Najam concluded.