RULES and regulations in Pakistan are often flouted for the benefit of the well-connected social elite. All over the world, motorways are planned to make the traffic flow efficient, and not to provide special access to housing societies. However, in Pakistan, wherever a road is planned, markets and housing societies sprout along it because of no-zoning regulations. High-speed motorways are generally planned away from housing schemes because of obvious reasons, but exceptions even on this count are possible here in Pakistan.

In a recent development, a housing society has been given a direct exit off the main Lahore-Islamabad M2 Motorway. Do the motorway authorities realise how dangerous it is for high-speed traffic? Why, in the first place, housing societies are even allowed along major roads? The irony is that the society calls itself ‘smart’ when it is anything but.

Moreover, the housing society in qu- estion was developed over thousands of acres of agricultural land and no one seemed to bat an eye. As such, just a few kilometres away, another such society has turned green fields into flat barren land. Will it also get a direct exit off the main motorway?

A dangerous precedence has been set, and now every other society will be given such special exits. It would be better to change the status of motorways into ordinary roads because motorways, even highways, all over the world do not have direct exits to housing development.

When will we see an end to housing societies that have destroyed acres of agricultural land? Why are special inc- entives given to these rich, well-connected developers?

Is there no one who may hold the culprits accountable for such mindless actions?

Sehar Zaman
Lahore

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2024