PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday directed the provincial government to take immediate steps for the uplift of five canals in the capital city and checking of their pollution and produce a progress report.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar also directed the Peshawar Development Authority’s director general to crack down on the commercial plazas without parking places in the capital city, especially on University Road, and demolish them if the need arises.

The bench, which is known as the green bench, issued directions while hearing environment-related petitions filed by lawyer Ghulam Shoaib Jally, Hamad Hassan Yousafzai, Malik Misraf, Hammad and other residents.

Provincial chief secretary Dr Kazim Niaz also showed up on notice and assured the court of action on its all orders.

Civic body told to crack down on plazas sans parking lots

Additional advocate general Sikander Hayat Shah, PDA director general Ammara Khan and several other officers also appeared before the bench.

The bench ordered an immediate halt to all sources of canal pollution and early start of work on the canal uplift project conceived by the government.

It observed that it didn’t want to bother the chief secretary and had to summon him only because the relevant departments hadn’t been performing duties.

The chief justice observed that the relevant officials had told the bench that uplift work on all canals won’t begin simultaneously suggesting that the speed of the project’s execution would be very slow and would take much longer to complete.

The chief secretary said the government had already approved funds for the canals uplift project and uplift of canals would begin on May 15 after initial formalities were met.

He said five high-level meetings had already taken place in that respect.

Dr Kazim also said the government had been taking steps to check environmental pollution.

He said the establishment of the provincial capital’s largest public park had been planned near Hazarkhwani area.

The chief secretary said the government had been taking action against commercial plazas, which didn’t have parking places for traders and visitors.

The PDA director general said the authority, in order to address the car parking problems, had planned to build parking plazas under public-private partnership on the University Road, one of the busiest roads in Peshawar.

She added that places had already been identified for that purpose and parking plazas would address the problem.

The chief justice observed that the city had many shopping plazas, whose basements meant for the parking of cars were used for shops.

The DG said the authorities had been cracking down on such plazas and had been ensuring the use of parking basements for the purpose of their construction.

The bench also observed that during the recent rainfall, several Bus Rapid Transit stations were inundated, whereas the busy University Road also was also flooded hampering traffic and inconveniencing pedestrians.

The chief justice observed that apparently, the BRT project was far from being completed.

In a contempt petition, Ghulam Shoaib Jally, a senior lawyer, said the high court in his earlier petition had given a comprehensive order on Dec 12, 2017, for the improvement of the conditions of canals, including both short term and long-term measures.

The petitioner claimed that the government had ignored several of the directives given by the high court in that petition including construction of new sewerage treatment plants of all urban areas of Peshawar City for safe disposal of effluents.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2021