Punjab will establish Parks and Horticulture Authorities in every district by January 2027, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif decided at a meeting in Lahore on Friday.
The chief minister set the deadline for covering 20 more districts, completing the province-wide rollout. Parks authorities in Punjab are already functional in 10 districts, while 11 more have been newly established.
2,820 new posts for parks authorities in Punjab
The meeting approved recruitment against 2,820 technical posts at the district level, including managing directors, directors and technical staff. In a second phase, the authorities will be extended to every tehsil of the province.
Each district authority will set up an in-house nursery to supply plants at affordable prices for plantation drives and seasonal flower displays. The chief minister directed officials to prepare district-specific resource plans and launch phased plantation campaigns across tehsils, cities, towns and villages.
“I want every city, town and village to be adorned with trees and plants and filled with the fragrance of flowers,” Maryam Nawaz said at the meeting.
Monthly flower plans and KPIs
The chief minister ordered monthly plans for growing seasonal flowering plants and directed that trees be planted in every available vacant space. Key performance indicators will be developed to assess PHA officers, with each authority assigned targets for improving the urban landscape, beautifying parks and rehabilitating green belts.
The meeting was informed that all Category C parks in Lahore have been restored. Officials were told to introduce standardised planters and flowerpots across cities.
Plantation details shared at the briefing included bougainvillea along Khayaban-e-Jinnah, bamboo along Atta Bakhsh Road and amaltas trees at other locations, with three marigold varieties being grown across the province.
Food courts and branding
The design of PHA food courts was also approved, along with uniform branding for the authorities’ staff and vehicles. In a separate directive, PHA employees posted at official residences were ordered to return to their offices.
The Lahore authority alone manages 808 parks and 1,273 green belts, including five A+ category parks, and has distributed over 32,000 free saplings to citizens. Extending that machinery to every district is a far bigger undertaking. Smaller districts lack Lahore’s staff and budgets, which is why the 2,820 technical posts and the in-house nurseries matter: without people and plants on the ground, a parks authority exists only on paper.
The expansion builds on the Punjab government’s recent urban initiatives. The province has continued to roll out development schemes under Maryam Nawaz, who recently received a UN-Habitat honour for the Apni Chhat Apna Ghar housing programme. Punjab also approved Rs45 billion for three health projects with performance-linked funding, while schemes like the Scooty Scheme target young commuters.
What happens next
With the January 2027 deadline fixed, district administrations will now move to notify the new authorities and begin recruitment. The tehsil-level rollout, nurseries and monthly plantation calendars are expected to follow once the district bodies are in place.
Read the original reporting on this story in The Express Tribune.
