ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: The controversial New Murree Project is likely to again hit headlines when the National Assembly’s standing committee on environment meets on August 29, Dawn has learnt.

The government of Punjab will make presentation to the committee on the project after incorporating what it calls “certain changes” in the original plan.

The project, covering 4,111 acres of reserved forests at about 2,000 meters to 2,300 meters elevation in the Patriata area, has been planned as a tourist city of international standard by the government of Punjab.

Talking to Dawn, Chairperson of the NA committee on environment Farzeen Ahmad Sarfraz said the committee hoped that the changes were “what we had recommended.”

The NA committee in its earlier meeting had asked the provincial government to make changes to the project, as in its original form it would be “an environmental disaster’ for the area, Ms Sarfraz said.

When asked what if the Punjab government did not listen to the committee’s recommendations, she said, “by recommending changes in the plan, the committee had already played its due role.”

She explained that the committee had an advisory role. “Unfortunately, unlike other countries, NA committees’ observations in Pakistan are not followed in true spirit and letter,” she said.

In the developed countries, recommendations made by such bodies are taken very seriously and be it private or public sector organizations, they follow them strictly,” she observed.

“Whenever we have a meeting with certain organizations, they assure us of following our recommendations but to the committee’s utter disappointment, no practical action is taken afterwards,” she added.

Only recently, the committee had a meeting with leading motor companies of the country in connection with increasing pollution in the country, but no action was taken afterwards, she said.

In response to a question, she said any member of the committee can take the issue to parliament for a discussion.

Commenting on the project to be carried out on the prized 4,111 acres, she said the committee’s main concern, which it had conveyed to the Punjab government, was the cutting of forests.

It is not a matter of scenic beauty, but sustainable development of the area which is only possible through preserving its environment, she said.

According to independent estimates, more that 1.5 million grown-up trees of 200 to 250 years age will be felled for the project, which the Punjab government is intent upon executing.

“If completed in its original plan, it would be a total geological as well as ecological disaster, a fact which concerned people are either not able or not interested to understand,” she said.

More than 50 per cent of the drinking water needs of Islamabad are met through the catchment area (Simly dam and Rawal lake), which falls under the said project, Ms Sarfraz said.