LAHORE, Oct 17: The Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) has “lost” approximately Rs4 billion during the time between Chief Minister Shabaz Sharif’s previous stint in the late 1990s and his return to office this year. This was claimed by Khawaja Imran Raza, who is principal staff officer to the chief minister, on Friday.

Speaking exclusively to Dawn, Raza said that Chief Minister’s Taskforce on Horticulture had discovered the missing sum in the course of an audit, and added the amount was “the most conservative estimate.”

He said that his staff had arrived at the conclusion by finding a disparity between the amount billboards had been leased for over the previous “six to eight years” that were on the books and the amount quoted to advertisers.

Mustafa Kamal, who is chairman of the taskforce, added that it was for these reasons that a policy of billboards had been decided upon. He said that previous bidding was being decided by personal contacts and that corruption was rampant.

“The PHA was created to breathe life into the city through beautification and cultural activity. It lost its original purpose and we want to transform it to what it was 12 years ago,” Kamal added.

Unveiling the salient features of PHA’s upcoming annual development plan, Raza and Kamal said that the PHA were aiming at planting 100,000 trees per year with a total target of 10 million trees in mind.

The government of Punjab would enlist schoolchildren volunteers to plant between 5-10 per cent of the trees in order to give the public a sense of ownership in the process.

In December, an environmental awards ceremony would be staged to award members of the public and professionals for services in greening, cleaning, and beautification of the city.

They said each of the trees would be electronically tagged and monitored by satellite imagery via geographic information systems (GIS) technology, and a number of new species would be introduced.

Kamal said that legislation was being drawn to ensure all commercial buildings would be required to have a landscaping plan to beautify their surroundings. At present, new businesses were only contributing to the cutting of trees, he said.

Certain trees would be marked as “heritage trees” and would not be cut under any circumstances. These trees would either be of a certain age (around 25 years) or of rare species.

With a view to developing Lahore’s poorer areas, Raza said: “It is imperative to start a process that will cater to the downtrodden and provide the same facilities to them as the urban elite.” Rides, water fountains and green areas would be included, he added.

In Shahdara, a 60-acre park would be built while a new park in Journalist’s Colony, Harbanspura, was also underway. A total of 126 parks would be built in Township, out of 1,160 new parks for Lahore in total, as part of the plan to restore Lahore’s image as a “city of gardens”.

Other mooted projects include the hosting of art exhibitions at Jilani Park, featuring the work of the city’s art students, as well as the hiring of musicians and entertainers to enliven Liberty Market.

Plans are also afoot for the construction of park at Mochi Gate as part of the renovation of the Walled City.

The funding for these projects would be derived from the Rs300m development budget allocated to the PHA for this quarter, while any additional costs would come from the recently revived Lahore Road Rehabilitation Programme, he added.