Muhammad Naeem, 42, is a street vendor who deals in plastic goods and uses a pavement inside Delhi Gate as a storage place. He has an arrangement with the shop owner who charges him a significant amount for using the space outside his shop. The agreed amount has to be paid irrespective of the fact whether he made profit or incurred loss during a particular time period.
Naeem can boast of scores of loyal and satisfied customers who would visit his stall after regular intervals and make their purchases. On days, he would be so busy that he would miss his meals and lose track of time.
Unfortunately, the situation is totally the opposite today. He is still there but most of the time he sits idle on the pavement and occasionally looks out for prospective customers from among the people moving in his direction. He does find some but the number is a fraction of what he handled a year ago.
The only solace for Naeem is that the number of customers is increasing, albeit gradually, over the past few weeks. He recalls the time when he would not even get a single visitor in a day, mainly due to excessive digging along the road. Now the road is open to pedestrians and the dust has settled.
"What worries us is that they are not going to leave in December as we had expected," he says, referring to a bunch of labourers huddled in a corner and having food.
Naeem is talking about the contractors and labour working in the first phase of the Walled City rehabilitation project. Under the phase, the royal trail starting from Delhi Gate and ending at Kotwali Chowk near Wazir Khan Mosque and 57 streets linked to it were to be restored to their original shape. The plan also included underground electrification and removal of electricity wires and poles, redoing of facades of houses, removal of encroachments, laying underground sewage and so on.
Naeem is one of the many locals who are apprehensive about the success of the project and believe the team is going to stay there forever. The electricity wires are cluttered everywhere and poles blocking way like always, complains Tariq Iqbal, a frequent visitor to this part of the city.
Though the project achieved initial successes such as the removal of encroachments from around Shahi Hamam (Royal Bath) and Wazir Khan Mosque, the progress on remaining components is slow, he reveals.
Tariq expresses doubts that the delay might be due to the loss of interest among donors and hopes things start moving in the right direction.
While these speculations are making rounds, the Walled City Lahore Authority (WCLA) team claims they are very much on target and the delay is only for certain exclusive reasons, especially those related to the social character of the Walled City.
WCLA Director General Kamran Lashari tells TNS the launch (which was due this month) has been postponed till March 2014. "It’s not too big an issue, given the complexities involved," he says.
Lashari agrees that the shopkeepers inside the Delhi Gate have suffered financially because of the development work but he is hopeful they shall only benefit once the project is complete. He gives the example of the Lahore Metro Bus corridor project which led to the closure of businesses for some time till it was complete. "Today, nobody remembers the troubles; the common people have benefited from the project."
Talking about the issues, Lashari says the involvement of 856-odd private properties including residences and shops makes the execution a delicate affair.
Unlike a project involving the government land, this one has taken a lot of time, negotiations and social mobilisation to get going. Quite often, the house-owners who have signed agreements with the Authority, refuse to allow contractors to work on their properties. Clearing their apprehensions and making them honour the commitments they have made takes some time, he adds.
According to Lashari, underground electrification is complete but the electricity wires and poles cannot be removed until they have placed eight transformers at different places and connect the underground wires to them.
So far, the WCLA has been able to acquire only three of the identified spots while efforts are on to get hold of the remaining five, some of which are claimed by individual owners.
WCLA Public Relations Assistant Director Asghar Husain says the Authority has not asserted itself anywhere and taken the community on board in every possible decision. Though mandated to make rules and regulations and impose penalties in certain situations the Authority has refrained from doing this. Even the encroachers were paid Rs10,000 per square foot and their employees paid compensation against job loss, he says.
He says that the properties inside the Walled City are mostly inhabited by more than one families and land use changes after every eight hours. In the morning, the same place is used as a breakfast spot, in the afternoon it becomes a shop and in the evening it may be a barbeque point. It is often very difficult to convince all of them and make them think alike, he adds.
Asghar says there are a large number of residents who fear giving getting the façade uplift may deprive them of the right to convert their properties into commercial ones once wholesale markets expand. Brining them on the same page with others is a huge challenge.
The dilapidated condition of old buildings is another reason cited for the delay. It often happens that once workers start work on a façade, a wall collapses or cracks are exposed, says Asghar adding this leads to creation of more time and resource- consuming repair work.
Sources in the Punjab government hint at differences and non-cooperation among various government departments which is affecting the execution of the project.
When asked, the WCLA DG confirms there are certain issues include that pertaining to control of Shahi Hamam and Wazir Khan Mosque. Currently these two monuments are under the control of Tourism Development Corporation of Punjab (TDCP) and Punjab Auqaf Department respectively.
He says the WCLA has requested to the Punjab government to pass on the control of these two monuments to them. "Our point is that we are working and investing on these monuments and need control over them to make the change sustainable."
Besides, he says, it’s a pity that the WCLA has no space inside the Walled City to set up its office and hopes the Punjab government will take some landmark decisions in this regard. The government can change the ownership just like the way it passed on the control of Shahi Haman from Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to TDCP in 1990s, he says.
The DG also says different groups of people and institutions have been invited and they shall start visiting the place from December 15 onwards. It will be a sort of a soft launch which should add to the interest of the tourists and the general public and bring them here.
The local community, he says, will be the real beneficiary as it will be the people of the Walled City who will own the project. The authority involves them whenever possible. Recently, it has organised a tourist guide training for the youth of the Walled City in which Faqir Saifuddin also participated as chief trainer.