Advantages And Disadvantages Of Ravi Riverfront Urban Project

The RRUP project, originally planned by the former government in 2013 but sheltered because of the lack of needed $7.5 billion in foreign investment, encompasses a variety of residential and commercial areas, a medical and forest reserve, and a central business district.

The Punjab administration works to revive a former urban design project that aims at creating a new city center next to Ravi River.

The riverfront will be constructed along the lines of one that crosses London on the banks of the River Thames.

CEO Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar chaired a meeting on the concept of creating a new city to discuss proposals concerning this city. Sumair Ahmed Saeed, Director General of the Lahore Development Authority, told him about the proposed project.

Ravi Riverfront Urban Project: Background & History

First introduced in 1947 by the then deputy commissioner of Lahore, the concept of urban development on the river Ravi. In 2013, a project was initially planned for more than 18,000 hectares (44,000 acres) and began to be considered in Punjab. In 2014, the Lahore Development Authority contracted an Asian engineering firm, Meinhardt, in order for the Ravi River feasibility study to be performed.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan opened the finalized project on 7 August 2020 with some modifications.

As previously mentioned, the Lahore deputy commissioner first undertook the project in 1947.

Pakistan’s latest project Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is to create a sleeping river instead of constructing the largest on the world’s bank, from Ravi Siphon to Balloki.

The project consists of three-step in which a freshwater body of rainwater and treated wastewater will be created from a river which has sink into a nullah.

Water from the upper Chanab and BRB canals is also provided for the river where appropriate.

Important Project Details

The five-billion rupee project in Pakistan aims to refurbish and improve the Ravi River as a perpetual water system, with a high-quality urban development of about 35 million people on the neighboring property.

The concept is based on developments in London, England around River Thames. In August 2020, instead of 18,000 hectares, the new area under construction on the banks will be 40,000 hectares. For the plantation of 6 million trees, 70% of its area will be reserved.

In the first phase, a lake, an urban forest, three barrages and six water treatment plants will be installed. The Upper Chenab Canal and BRB Canal will, if necessary, be used to provide water for the construction. The masterplan involves a new city on the banks of the Ravi River, bordering Lahore on the north and west sides, made up of green belts, piers, and boardwalks, along with 1.4 million residential units.

Phases Of The Project

The first step, which would take three years to complete, would include the construction of a lake covering an area of 46 kilometers, six wastewater treatment plants, three dams, and urban forests.

The second phase will see the construction of road networks, while in the third phase, special centres for health, education, trade, innovation, and spotting will be set up.

Advantages Of Ravi Riverfront Urban Project

For the landmark Ravi River Front Urban Development (RRFUD) Project, an area of 103,271 acres will be acquired that will support communities and developers while helping to improve the city’s environment.

• The dying Ravi River is set to rise from its remains, like the mythological phoenix, and to give birth to a new Lahore on the largest 46 kilometers of riverfront to compete with any modern city in the world.
• The project would uplift the dying river Ravi, almost reduced to a trickle by the Indian government’s unlawful construction of dams.
• In the second phase, an Innovation City spanning over 1,370 acres will be built, while the Information City, Sports City, and Eco-City will be completed in the third phase on a 14,000-acre land area.
• The construction of the lake would rid the Ravi of domestic and industrial waste and provide 271 billion liters of water, adding that 2,4 billion liters of land that would irrigate 75,000 acres of land would be treated by wastewater treatment plants.
• As 2.4 billion liters of safe drinking water would be extracted from the canal water after treatment, the surface water treatment plant would reduce the Lahorites’ reliance on the groundwater by 50 percent.

Disadvantages Of Ravi Riverfront Urban Project

Experts suggest Ravi’s natural flow and ecological equilibrium will be lost. A letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan with signatures from the country’s leading architects to avoid this project was published by the Lahore Conservation Society.

• Approximately five dozen experts from the historic National College of Arts (NCA) are also signatories of the PM’s plea. To name just a few, FHQ & Associates, Pakistan Green Building Council, Nayyar Ali Dada & Associates, and Hara Bhara Pakistan have called on the PM to stop the project.
• As suggested in the LDA analysis of channeling a river, the idea goes against sustainable development values and would kill the little ecological equilibrium left of the river and its flood plains.
• The project should not take into account the financial and ecological effects it would have on the environment. From both an environmental, social, and economic viewpoint, this appears to be an unfeasible undertaking.
• The project is against the laws of the UN-SDGs and LHC. The project is unsustainable from all sides, including economic, economic, and financial, although its definition is contrary to all the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN-SDGs) of which Pakistan is a signatory and in breach of the orders of the Lahore High Court.
• The 2040 Lahore Master Plan has yet to be completed and no project should be undertaken before the recommendations for the Master Plan are in effect, it added. Increasing the project’s worries. The cost of land along the river embankment would be beyond the population’s paying ability because the cost of construction works would be extremely high.
• This project is in contradiction with the Prime Minister’s Clean Green Pakistan initiative, so it must be stopped and the government should instead concentrate on providing the masses with affordable housing, as promised in its manifesto.

The Need Of Ravi Riverfront Urban Project

Lahore’s challenges include a lack of clean drinking water, a harmful source of too many diseases for the majority. One of the reasons why groundwater from Lahore, the primary source of both drinking water and irrigation, is unsafe is because it has been unsafe over the years.

The River Ravi has been heavily polluted by unrestrained dumping of untreated factory waste into its waters in the duration that passes through Lahore. As well as the discharge of human waste and garbage produced by the city (through the stormwater drains used as sewers that discharge into the Canal and into the river through it).

Not only does this contaminated water find its way into the groundwater aquifer and thus into the stomachs of citizens, it has been proven harmful for human health by its use to irrigate the vegetables and other agricultural products grown on the outskirts of the city and that serve their needs.

Ravi Riverfront Urban Project can solve this problem and bring immense prosperous opportunities.