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| Ravi River Front Plan: To what extent will the Supreme Court decision provide relief to the government? |
The Ravi River Front project requires 120,000 acres of land on both sides of the Ravi River and it is not yet clear whether the present government will be able to acquire more than 70% of the required land.
The Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) is responsible for completing the Ravi River Front project, which has decided to complete the project in three phases. About 44,000 acres of land is required for the first phase. The second phase will require 28,000 acres and the third phase will require 30,000 acres.
Rhoda intended to continue work on the other three phases as well as the first phase, but the basic requirement is land acquisition.
Most of the required land is cultivated by farmers. It faced resistance when the government began acquiring the land from farmers about a year ago in exchange for compensation under the Rhoda law.
Some farmers did not want to sell the land. The rest objected that the government was not paying their dues properly. However, some farmers feel that the removal of agricultural land is not the right decision for a 'residential project'.
Along with the protest, the affected farmers had also approached the court. On these petitions, a Lahore court last year barred Roda from continuing the land purchase process.
According to Rhoda spokesperson Sher Afzal, Roda has so far acquired about 5,000 acres of land. He claimed that a total of 10,000 acres of land had been paid to the farmers by Roda and in addition, about 20,000 acres were already owned by the government.
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| Ravi River Front Plan: To what extent will the Supreme Court decision provide relief to the government? |
At the moment, however, Roda cannot buy more land. The Lahore High Court in a recent judgment had declared some of the provisions of Rhoda unconstitutional and illegal.
Roda has recently been given such an opportunity to approach the Supreme Court that she can continue the development work on the land which she had already paid for.
The court has directed the parties to submit all the necessary documents within a month, after which the proceedings of the Supreme Court will begin on Roda's appeal against the decision of the Lahore High Court.
However, many aspects of the future of the Ravi River Front project are now linked to the Supreme Court decision. How long does the court proceedings take, and will the plan be implemented by then?
If the Supreme Court asks the government to comply with the order of the Lahore High Court regarding the acquisition of land, will the Punjab government legislate again and will the amount paid for the purchased lands be further increased? ?
In such a scenario, would investors want to invest in a pending project? And if progress on the project has not been possible under the present government, will the next government take an interest in the project?
How much work has been done on the project so far?
According to Rhoda's spokesperson Sher Afzal, Rhoda has awarded a contract for a project called 'Saffron Bay' to be built on about two thousand acres in the first phase. The contract has been awarded to Jawadan Group, a group of local construction companies.
In addition, Rhoda has recently inaugurated a project called 'Chahar Bagh'. According to Rhoda's spokesperson, the scheme covers an area of about 300 acres on which Rhoda will carry out the development work itself.
According to the Punjab government, the first phase of Ravi River Front will initially cover 15,000 acres of Sapphire Bay, Agri, Knowledge, Emerald Bay, Topaz Block, Barrages and Lake.
How did the Lahore High Court decision affect the project?
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| Ravi River Front Plan: To what extent will the Supreme Court decision provide relief to the government? |
According to a recent Lahore High Court decision, Rhoda did not have an independent master plan. In its absence, all the schemes are illegal, including schemes like Chahar Bagh and Sapphire Bay.
If the government did not get conditional
permission from the Supreme Court, Rhoda could not proceed with the development
work on such schemes unless it made the required changes in view of the
decision of the Lahore High Court. Can a recent
Supreme Court decision create problems?
The Supreme Court on
Tuesday ruled on a petition filed by Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM) in
2013, ordering the Sindh government to "transfer financial, administrative
and political powers to local governments".
The Supreme Court
order states that under Article 140A of the Constitution of Pakistan,
provincial governments are bound to establish "empowered" local
governments.
The Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court has written in his judgment that the provincial government
cannot launch any scheme which falls under the jurisdiction of the local
governments. It is up to the local governments to prepare and implement the
city's master plan.
Rafi Alam, a lawyer
representing some of the petitioners in the Lahore High Court, told the BBC
that he intended to file another petition in the court based on the same
decision of the Supreme Court.
How important is the
relief from the Supreme Court?
According to
experts, the recent relief received by Roda after her appeal against the Lahore
High Court's decision is such that she can move the development work forward.
A lawyer involved in
the case told the BBC that Rhoda claims that he has 30,000 acres of land on
which he can continue development work in the light of the Supreme Court
decision.
"If they manage
to bring in investment and does construction work on that much land, then the
time spent on legal action will not be too much for them."
What will Ravi River
Front be like?
Imran Khan recently
visited the project site and while standing there he released a video message.
He said that Ravi River Front was not a housing scheme but a new city was being
built.Ravi River Front Plan: To what extent will the Supreme Court decision provide relief to the government?
He said that the
government had not been able to present its position properly in the High Court
but they would present it in a better way in the Supreme Court.
Referring to the
project, the Prime Minister said that it was necessary because it was a ارب 20 billion project, not such a big
project in Pakistan. It will bring in investment from abroad and create jobs.
As our population grows, we need new cities. "
The cornerstone of the Ravi Urban Development Project was laid on August 7, 2020 and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan in September last year. The total area of the project was one lakh two thousand acres.
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