Daily Times

Work on the first phase of the Ravi Riverfront City would start soon most probably during the first week of October, and completed before time, as the foreign investors had been invited to invest in the new city on the outskirts of provincial capital.

The features of the new Ravi city would be visible in three to four years time as built on Dubai and Singapore models, Ravi city would be scattered over an area of 100,000 acres and its buildings would be architectural masterpieces to the world, said an official of Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA), here on Thursday.

He said the masses were aware of the benefits of the Ravi City, adding that people should play their role in the success of development of a new city which would address housing, infrastructure, water and environmental challenges to the historic Lahore.

He dispelled an impression that the land had forcibly been acquired for development of the new city, and said that the affectees would be accommodated through various regulations. He said the private builders would not be able to harm interests of the public in the newly planned city.

The locals would be preferred to others in jobs, health and education facilities in the new city, being developed on the banks of the old Ravi, he said and added that locals of the area, selected for developing Ravi Riverfront City, would have the first right to jobs and a quota would be fixed for them.

He said that new city was a need of the hour as Lahore was faced with multiple challenges due to inefficient civic planning, adding that the master plan of Lahore should have been revised multiple times in the past, but it was not done.

With a length of 46-kilometer and a width of 3,280 feet, surrounded by a 33-foot high wall, Ravi City would prove to be a gift for the people of Lahore.

Three barrages would be built to attain the water level for the riverfront as the project was to generate enormous financial activity through creation of new jobs, housing facilities, clean environment and futuristic facilities.

However, 836 cusecs of untreated domestic wastewater was dumped into the project area of Ravi River and development of a lake would purge the Ravi of domestic and industrial waste, and provide 271 billion liters of water while the waste water treatment plants would help treat 2.4 million liters of water that would irrigate 75,000 acres of land.

In case of a natural calamity like floods, the city had the capacity to control a water flow of 586,000 cusecs, as the feasibility existed before the work was started on the project.

So far the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) had received 171 applications to develop housing societies on the site of the Ravi City, but the LDA did not approve the applications, however, the authority would consult agriculture experts to start farming on modern lines in the new city.