516 dangerous buildings razed

LAHORE: The Commissioner Lahore Division Friday said that the divisional administration must get help of law enforcing agencies to eliminate hindrance to raze declared dangerous buildings in Lahore.

He directed officials concerned to immediately get written on walls of such buildings that they had been declared dangerous for residence and other uses. He also directed to coordinate with other departments like railways, auqaf and revenue about the issue. He said to prepare a work plan at divisional level about the declared dangerous buildings.

He said this while chairing a meeting in his committee room. Some 1,996 buildings in the whole division had been identified as debilitated buildings to be abolished and to be repaired categories. The meeting was informed that 516 declared dangerous buildings had been razed while 649 buildings in repair category had been repaired. However, the status of 244 buildings had not been yet decided whether to demolish or repair them.

Tree plantation: Punjab Chief Secretary Akbar Durrani on Friday planted a sapling in Lahore Museum as part of the ongoing tree plantation campaign in the province. The Punjab government has set a target of planting 30 million saplings in three months.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief secretary said that the campaign was aimed at promoting plantation and citizens should take part in the activity with zeal to make it a success. He opined that controlling environment pollution was a service to humanity; tree plantation was imperative to control growing environmental pollution. "There is a need to work on emergency basis to protect environment, he added.

He also underlined the need for launching a community mobilization and awareness campaign for controlling air pollution and benefits of tree plantation.