After the ‘widely successful’ Metro Bus and Orange Line train projects, Lahore is now going to host a metro boat service. Just hours after torrential rains submerged Lahore’s busiest roads and turne the city into a South Asian ‘Venice’, Shahbaz Sharif has confirmed that he is planning to install a metro boat service in the provincial capital. After all, Venice isn’t complete without a boat service.
Despite the fact that the Orange Line is yet to be completed, the Metro Boat is a high priority project, since it will be impossible to label Lahore as the ‘Punjabi Venice’ without a running boat service. The service will run through a section of the Canal Bank Road and pass by the newly inaugurated waterfall located near the General Post Office on Mall Road.
Now Lahoris need not travel hours to reach natural wonders like Swaik Lake and Kallar Kahar. Instead, the Punjab Government has provided the citizens a waterfall, that too while they post their mail.
There are concerns regarding the funding of the service as the project is expected to cost the equivalent of a quarter of the yearly education budget for Punjab. However, this is not expected to be a problem as laptops will be provided to all those children missing out on an education.
Moreover, this will also satisfy Lahoris who have long been complaining about a lack of a lack of beaches in the city and who until now hadt had to make do with the polluted banks of the Ravi. The project to turn Liberty Chowk into a beach is almost complete. Now that the surrounding areas are inundated with water and an ample number of palm trees have been planted, all that remains is adding some sand.
