Margalla Hills National Park threatened by encroachment
Zubair Qureshi
The participants of a webinar on Saturday urged the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to immedi-ately halt construction of Margalla Avenue as it was against the existing rules and posed threat to the environment.
They demanded consultation with stakeholders to avoid any direct confrontation.
According to details, while speaking at a webinar, the civil society activists and environmentalists strongly condemned the continuing construction work on the Margalla Avenue without any approval of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
The participants urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to take notice of the CDA’s negligence as the illegal 3-km road entered deep into the Margalla Hills Na-tional Park (MHNP) for the construction of Mar-galla Avenue.
The CDA they said was paying no heed to the Envi-ronmental Protection Order (EPO), issued by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) for violating the Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP) boundary.
The webinar was organized by the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) on the subject “Margalla Avenue: CDA’s illegal en-croachment into Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP)” on Saturday.
Introducing the subject, Devcom-Pakistan Executive Director Munir Ahmed said the Margalla Avenue was launched in 2012 by Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, then prime minister of Pakistan. The well-hyped Avenue became controversial since the day it was launched because of its environmental conse-quences.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has al-ready reserved its verdict two months back on the citizens’ petition. Six more public interest petitions have been clubbed with the first one.
CDA has con-tinued its construction work at the Avenue till today despite the case in the court of law, and the Pak-EPA has also issued an EPO. This is strange. CDA is paying no heed to the concerns of the stake-holders, and continuing violation of the rule of law.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister Malik Amin Aslam in a message termed the matter “sub judice” and avoided any comment. However, he assured to take up the matter with higher authorities.
CDA should have halted the construction work until the verdict was announced. This is unethical that CDA kicked off construction without the approval of EIA, and paying no heed to the Environmental Protection Order of the Pak-EPA. We should abol-ish all these legal forums if the government authori-ties have to bypass them.
Several residents of Sector D-12 warned CDA of protests in front of National Press Club and dharna in the D-chowk and to block the roads if the con-struction of Margalla Avenue is not halted.
On the other hand, the environmentalists were threatened with protests if intrusion into the National Park continued.
