LAHORE: On August 1, Colonel (retired) Abid Latif, director of public relations on the Ravi City Growth Authority (RUDA), proudly declared in a video posted on X (previously Twitter) that his newest mission was nothing wanting a “piece of heaven” on earth.
That so-called “heaven” is Chahar Bagh, a luxurious housing improvement sprawling alongside the banks of the river Ravi. Now 70% full, it guarantees a mixture of villas, towering skyscrapers, mid-rise residences, and high-end condominiums. Whereas one-kanal houses in Chahar Bagh are priced at Rs24 million, in accordance with RUDA’s web site.
The event additionally boasts futuristic perks like deliveries through drones and quadcopters to residents.
However Chahar Bagh is just the start. The Punjab authorities has far grander ambitions: to create the world’s largest riverfront metropolis on the outskirts of Lahore and Sheikhupura.
Overlaying an infinite 110,000 acres, the envisioned metropolis would home over 10 million individuals and have medical complexes, sports activities arenas, leisure hubs, authorities places of work, and even a global airport. In 2020, the Punjab authorities established an unique improvement authority, known as the Ravi City Growth Authority (RUDA), to supervise the brand new mega-city’s improvement.
However beneath the attract of luxurious houses and shimmering skyscrapers, a harsh actuality is taking form: the sacrifice of fertile farmland.
A brand new metropolis constructed on prime agricultural land
A 2021 Environmental Influence Evaluation (EIA) report, ready for RUDA, disclosed that an awesome majority, due to this fact over 75%, of the land earmarked for the riverfront metropolis is agricultural, the place crops like wheat, rice, corn, and fruit are grown.
“The realm alongside Kalakhatai Highway is known for producing Basmati rice, which is extremely prized in worldwide markets,” the report highlighted. Moreover, the event space contains seven forests, it famous.
The report additional warned that a lot of the agricultural land “might be completely misplaced and extremely diminished after the mission.”
Meals safety is a significant concern for Pakistan. A 2024 report of the World Starvation Index (GHI), a software utilized by worldwide humanitarian businesses to trace world starvation ranges, has labeled Pakistan’s starvation ranges as “severe.”
But, successive governments—first below former prime minister Imran Khan and now below Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif—have pressed ahead with plans for the brand new metropolis on arable land.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif and her father, Nawaz Sharif, have each not too long ago visited the mission websites, pledging shut oversight of its progress. The concept of the riverfront metropolis truly dates again to 2013 when then prime minister Nawaz Sharif first proposed it, although it lay dormant till 2020 when Imran Khan revived the mission with appreciable fanfare.
Since then, Punjab authorities officers have invoked the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894 to amass land from farmers. And those that resist face extreme penalties, reminiscent of imprisonment, eviction and being slapped with terrorism prices.
“Since 2020, the authorities have criminally charged greater than 100 farmers with resisting or refusing handy over land they occupied,” the New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in April 2023 about RUDA. “Accounts by farmers, supported by images and video, present proof of intimidation, harassment, and use of power.”
Land acquisitions and authorized battles
One such farmer is Sajjad Warraich, whose household owns almost 500 acres alongside the Ravi in Sheikhupura. The land has been of their possession since 1945.
Warraich first discovered of the brand new metropolis’s plans in 2020 when then-prime minister Imran Khan visited his space to unveil the mission. “I assumed the prime minister was coming to announce assist for struggling farmers,” Warraich recounted in an interview with The Information, sitting at his farm, “Little did we all know he would ask us to sacrifice our land.”
In 2021, Warraich and a bunch of farmers took their struggle to court docket, profitable a brief reprieve, when on January 25, 2022, Justice Shahid Karim of the Lahore Excessive Courtroom dominated the RUDA mission unlawful on a number of grounds, together with the dearth of a grasp plan and the absence of native authorities approval.
“The conversion of farmland to different makes use of presents an actual and current hazard to meals safety, the setting, and social well-being,” the decide wrote.
However the victory was short-lived.
Days later, the Supreme Courtroom of Pakistan partially suspended the Excessive Courtroom’s ruling, permitting RUDA to proceed its improvement on land it had already acquired. Two years later, the case stays in authorized limbo.
Within the meantime, RUDA has not backed down.
Over the previous three years, Warraich has confronted 5 police complaints, some below anti-terrorism legal guidelines, for refusing to give up his land. He has frolicked in jail, had his gear snatched, and seen his house raided by police. His youngest son even spent a month behind bars for protesting.
Extra not too long ago, Warraich found that the federal government had allotted his non-public land to itself on paper—an act he claims immediately violates the Supreme Courtroom’s order. When intimidation didn’t sway him, officers tried to purchase him off, providing an open-ended sum, he stated. Warraich refused.
“For so long as I’m alive, I’ll proceed to struggle for my land,” the farmer vowed, hopeful that the Supreme Courtroom will finally rule in his favor.
Tahir Warraich, a 60-year-old farmer, shares an identical story.
He owns 43 acres of land alongside the river, which has been taken over by RUDA. In 2023, he introduced the matter to court docket, the place Justice Shahid Karim of the Lahore Excessive Courtroom ordered RUDA to permit him to domesticate his land. Regardless of the ruling, Warraich has been denied entry to his property.
“They don’t let me into my very own home,” an emotional Warraich instructed The Information over the cellphone. “Each time I step onto my land, the officers abuse and threaten me.”
RUDA’s response: Growth or Displacement?
Regardless of the authorized battles and protest by farmers, RUDA has continued work undeterred.
Thus far, it has acquired round 13% of the overall land wanted for the brand new metropolis—roughly 12,000 to fifteen,000 acres, in accordance with Colonel (r) Abid Latif, RUDA’s director of public relations.
Of this, 2,000 acres, belonging to about 470 farmers, had been acquired utilizing the controversial Land Acquisition Act, he stated, additional claiming that almost all of the farmers agreed to promote their land to the state.
“Solely 70 or so [farmers] are resisting it,” he instructed The Information.
Lately, and after orders from the Supreme Courtroom, Latif claims that RUDA has additionally altered its land shopping for mannequin and now gives market charges to keen sellers. “If the proprietor desires to promote, we purchase. In the event that they don’t, we don’t,” he stated.
He additionally disputes the declare that 75% of the land is agricultural, insisting the quantity is way smaller and insignificant. Nonetheless, when The Information requested him to corroborate his declare with information, he didn’t reply. It should be famous that the federal government’s personal 2021 Environmental Influence Evaluation report calculated the fertile land to be greater than 75%. The identical determine was confirmed by satellite tv for pc maps offered by one other division of the Punjab authorities, which requested to not be named as a result of sensitivity of the matter.
Under are satellite tv for pc photographs of the land RUDA plans to construct on taken within the 12 months 2013 after which in 2023, which clearly exhibits that an awesome a part of the marked land is agricultural land.
As work progresses, 30 corporations have utilized to assemble housing societies within the new metropolis, of which three have obtained a ultimate go-ahead from RUDA, the retired colonel stated. “[The new city] can even embody a portion [homes] for the low-paid,” Latif insists, dismissing criticism that the brand new metropolis was just for the prosperous.
Among the many numerous housing tasks RUDA envisions, one stands out: “Maskan-e-Ravi,” a improvement that goals to supply inexpensive housing for journalists. Providing three to seven marla plots, the scheme has already attracted over 1,500 candidates from the Pakistani media, in accordance with RUDA’s on-line portal.
Will the brand new metropolis deal with Lahore’s housing disaster?
For RUDA, the brand new metropolis is an pressing want to deal with Lahore’s housing and infrastructure challenges.
With a inhabitants of 13 million, Lahore is already struggling to deal with rising city calls for, it insists. “The one approach ahead is thru a [new] deliberate metropolis” adjoining to Lahore, reads an announcement on RUDA’s web site.
However city planners stay skeptical, noting that luxurious houses do little for low- and middle-income households dwelling in Lahore, who’re already struggling to seek out inexpensive housing.
“Who’re we constructing this metropolis for? Who will come and reside in these residences? Are we catering for a housing demand or are we catering for land improvement as a type of funding solely?” asks Fizzah Sajjad, an city planner primarily based in Lahore.
Nearly all of demand for housing is for inexpensive housing, she added. “These unique villas gained’t meet that want.”
The Punjab authorities, nonetheless, says that affect of local weather change, the “inconvenience” to farmers, and situation about their rightful compensation might be “rigorously weighed” towards the wants of city planning, notably in mild of inhabitants progress and metropolis density.
“We’re striving to stability these elements whereas making certain that each one actions are carried out throughout the framework of the legislation and justice. No landowner might be disadvantaged of their authorized rights or honest compensation, as stipulated by legislation,” a Punjab authorities official who requested to not be named instructed The Information.
House, however for a way lengthy?
Again on the banks of the Ravi, on a sweltering October afternoon, Sajjad Warraich sits beneath a big mango tree exterior his house, the place he lives alone along with his spouse. Native farmers collect round him in a circle. For them, Warraich is a hero – a pacesetter who will lead their struggle.
Regardless of struggling for 3 years, lots of the farmers nonetheless maintain out hope for justice from the highest court docket. Warraich shares their optimism, although his current petitions in numerous courts for an early listening to have gone unanswered, he stated. “I don’t know what’s going to change into of me,” Warraich provides quietly, “I don’t even know if I’ll be right here just a few years from now. However these planning this new metropolis have to cease and take into consideration the longer term generations. They should suppose arduous: What are we forsaking for our youngsters?”
His phrases grasp within the air, heavy with uncertainty—identical to the standing of the land he’s spent years making an attempt to guard.
Initially revealed in The Information