The Supreme Court’s decision on the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project has paved the way for the provincial government to resume work on the mass transit project. That Pakistani cities are in dire need of public transport infrastructure is beyond dispute. Neither the five-judge bench nor the parties to the litigation had questioned the rationale for the project. The dispute was about the extent to which the proposed construction could damage 11 heritage sites along the track.
The majority opinion is based on a particular reading of assessment reports submitted by experts commissioned at various stages. The dissenting judge, Justice Maqbool, meanwhile, has also quoted from the same reports and has still managed to find flaws in them. Notably, he has highlighted that several crucial bits of information were not available to the experts — like the exact specifications of the trains to be used — and they had to operate on assumptions. He has also noted that none of the expert reports was based on accurate geological information about these sites.
Interestingly, the report submitted by the only expert nominated by the respondents — a group of concerned citizens including eminent architecture Kamil Khan Mumtaz — has been dismissed on grounds that it does not offer any technical advice on the issue.
The obvious problem here is that there isn’t one correct way of approaching these technical questions. While the SC bench has taken the most efficient way out, it has also left the larger question unaddressed. To be fair, that question was never posed to the bench in the first place. The question has to do with our vision for development i.e. whether it is to be geared only towards the past and present, i.e. heritage and public transport concerns, or it has room for envisioning a sustainable future as well? The latter concern will require us to not obsess with singular mega-infrastructure projects that may promise a lot of political dividends in the short-term. Rather, we will need a vision for peaceful and egalitarian co-existence between our cities and townships, various communities that inhabit these landscapes as well as between various federating units.
As far as the cities are concerned, singular mass transit projects aren’t going to be of much good without a comprehensive and environment-friendly road transport policy that disincentivises use of private automobiles in congested city neighbourhoods.
The sad bit is that the concern with our collective future seems not to be too high on the agenda of any of the major parties to the debate or of those entrusted with the honourable task of adjudicating such disputes. *
Published in Daily Times, December 9th 2017.