LAHORE: The rate at which the population is growing is astounding. Therefore, with an increasing number of people the need for shelter is on the rise as well. Most of the population in the country lives in villages, but due to the lack of opportunities people are relocating to cities for more opportunities, quality education and better lifestyles.
To satisfy the need for habitation according to the number of people moving to the urban areas, a large number of housing societies are emerging with every passing day. The societies are offering many perks and essentials such as security, schooling, parks, amusement, carpeted roads and safe environment within the premises.
Therefore, people are keen to buy plots and build houses in such societies not only for a good lifestyle but also from the investment point of view. Yet all such benefits and perks are being attained at the cost of arable lands as all these societies that are being built near the cities are consuming agricultural lands. Moreover, most of these societies all over Punjab are not meeting the promised standards and some of them are not even registered with the local urban development authorities.
The mass scale expansion of such societies over arable lands could cause food shortage in the years to come. And the expansion could also lead to environmental disaster. If we specifically talk about Lahore, we can see that the city has always been the centre for massive migration and relocation from all over Punjab.
To address the need for habitation, the Lahore Development Authority has started authorizing local developers to build housing societies to accommodate demand. The vast expansion around Lahore has eaten up large swathes of agricultural land. It’s a well-known fact that the agriculture sector is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and if the housing sector keeps growing in an unplanned manner, it will dent the economy badly in the coming years.
Speaking to Bol News, eminent architect and environmentalist Imrana Tiwana said “In megacities the rate of urbanization is very high and the demands on infrastructure are increasing rapidly. By infrastructure I mean the road networks, services, drainage, electricity supply, supply of water and gas, hospitals, schools and waste management, everything starts increasing very promptly as the megacity begins to explode”.
Managing urbanization
She said that now the question arises regarding the management of the rapid pace of urbanization, particularly in megacities, and the answer is the model that has been used in different countries, particularly in China, as they realized that more people meant more services and infrastructure.
Ms Tiwana also said that we can keep on changing the master plan but if it is not catering to the needs of rapid urbanization and increasing numbers right from the beginning, we will begin to see a collapse within the city, which means that traffic jams will increase no matter how many roads you make, consequently increasing environmental pollution.
Increasing pollution
“The industry around and in the city will also increase and that will add to the pollution. Lahore today is the most polluted city in the world, this is not a minor thing and it is also a fact that today the food chain, water and the air are contaminated”, she said and added “We are already in a state of health emergency. The air quality is so poor that it is hard to breathe normally. To make matters worse, the Covid issue has added to the problems we are already facing. The more we expand, the bigger we make our city in size which will ultimately lead us to a complete collapse.”
Ms Tiwana said that big green buffer zones should be created around the city and the Ring Road so that they can act as the lungs of the city.
“I think we should stop for a minute and re-evaluate rapid urbanization in a megacity so that we are able to provide an efficient system. This is a complete science within itself which educates us how to plan for people and how to plan for mobility”, she suggested.
“Here I give full credit to the government for introducing Euro-4 and 5 petrol, for bringing in green laws, converting the brick kilns to the zigzag technology and bringing electric vehicles”, she said while maintaining that this government has done better than any other governments before, but it is a process which will take time. We cannot see results overnight. However radical steps need to be taken in this direction.
Speaking about the arable land that is being used to build housing schemes, Ms Tiwana said that it’s very important that the buffer zones around Lahore and the other cities in Punjab regarding the agricultural land should be maintained and new laws should be introduced so that agricultural land is not converted into housing schemes at the present rate.
“As we know the environment is directly related to the well-being of human beings and the planet. Whether we go high up in the skies and remain on the ground regarding the habitation concept the issue remains the same, provision of integrated infrastructure which is very important. I think that we need to look at creating new cities providing incentives to people. We have the special economic zones where industries can be shifted. We can make secondary and tertiary cities all over Punjab so that people get fundamental facilities within their place of habitation”, said observed.
Economic aspect and food shortage
Agreeing with Ms Tiwana, acclaimed economist Dr Vaqar Ahmed, who is also the joint executive director at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), said that now farmers are selling and converting their cultivated lands into real estate to get more profits. The practice is in vogue all over Punjab as well as other parts of the country.
“This has resulted in reducing cultivated lands, and the problem is not only in the surroundings of urban areas but also in the rural areas as well, so due to this, the food production is falling day by day”.
Dr Ahmed said that another factor which is aggravating the aspect is that farmers are not getting appropriate prices for their products so they are converting their lands into real estate. “Now the impact is already felt as we can see, due to the lack of local production and supply, Pakistan’s import has increased at a surprising rate to meet the required need”, he regretted.
Dr Ahmed believes that the transport and logistic costs have also swelled and this factor is playing a vital role in the skyrocketing prices of food items. The problem will surge with every passing day because of the lack of an agriculture policy in our country.
He suggested that the government should develop a policy framework about the agriculture sector to avoid chaos in the coming days.
