LAHORE, Feb 17: The Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (Tepa) has yet to rehabilitate various city parks/playgrounds that were converted into open warehouses of construction material during the execution of the bus project.

At least 10 parks/playgrounds or open places in the city were damaged after the engineering staff dumped construction material there. They include Wahdat Colony playground (near Samanabad Morr), MAO College Cricket Ground, GC College grounds and open spaces (along Marghazar Colony Link Road from Babu Sabu). “The Wahdat Colony and MAO college playgrounds have been left in bad shape,” Muhammad Ilyas, a resident of Samanabad, told Dawn on Sunday. He said the MBS project execution in around one year had forced children to play or people walk in streets.

Zulfiqar, another resident, said the government should have removed the construction material on a priority. “The material is still lying there and causing respiratory problems for the residents,” he said.

Tepa Chief Engineer Saeed Akhtar said a plan had already been devised to rehabilitate all city parks used for dumping construction material. “We will start removing the entire machinery and construction material and rehabilitating these parks within next 10 to 15 days,” he claimed.

He said the officials had almost completed road rehabilitation work except at some spots at Qartaba Chowk, MAO College and Canal portion linking Ferozepur Road. “We hope we will complete the entire roads rehabilitation assignment within next couple of days.”

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif ordered the authorities to immediately restore playgrounds by removing debris besides adding more provisions to them.

At a meeting in Model Town, he said the metro buses and other installations were an asset which must be protected by the government as well as people. He announced a flat fare of Rs20 from each MBS passenger from Monday (today).