LAHORE, May 24: The administration of the Sustainable Development of the Walled City of Lahore (SDWCL) is likely to open the walled city to local and international tourists and public from November this year.

“We have completed 80 per cent of work under project’s package-1 at the cost of Rs700 million,” Project Director General Kamran Lashari told Dawn at a community gathering at Sabeel Wali Gali (Sabeel Street) inside Delhi Gate on Friday.

He said the project administration with the World Bank was rehabilitating the façade of 533 houses in 37 streets of the walled city.

The 533 streets include two (Muhammadi Neighbourhood and Gali Surjan Singh) where the project officials rehabilitated residential and commercial buildings in consultation with a leading consultant namely called ACE.

Officials are demolishing shops hiding the beauty of historic Wazir Khan mosque.

He said community gatherings would be held at Sabeel Street once the project was complete and open places would be marked in Walled City to revive tea corners, eateries and rest places “It will help us witness small gatherings of locals and tourists. All open places will have brick floors with patches of grass,” he said.

He said local community’s participation would be ensured in open place activities. He said a community mobilisation team had been made to motivate the people to own such places.

“You can see many local residents who have come here to select, design and drawing this small open place. Such activities will create a sense of ownership among the walled city residents,” the project director general said.

The rehabilitation of the walled city is not an easy task.

“You see, it isn’t an easy job. Engineers face technical and physical hardships in very narrow streets while performing construction and rehabilitation work.

“Besides construction, they are also replacing the old infrastructure of the walled city with new ones,” he said when asked about the slow pace of work on the project.

Talking to Dawn, Maqbool Ahmad, a walled city resident, praised the rehabilitation work.

“Officials should also cover the drain passing by Delhi Gate,” he suggested. Project Director (infrastructure) Shahid Durrani said since the drain was passing through the walled city, it could not be covered under the project. “We have written a letter to the town municipal administration to complete the task,” he added.