The Master Plans for Quetta, Cholistan Region, Murree City, and Bahawalpur represent four distinct master planning engagements in which Dr. Ghulam Mohey-ud-din contributed as Urban and Regional Economist — providing specialist socio-economic analysis and economic planning inputs to multidisciplinary master planning teams working across Pakistan’s diverse geographic and economic contexts. Each engagement addressed a unique set of planning challenges, economic realities, and development imperatives.
Nature of Engagement
These master planning engagements were structured as specialist advisory inputs — with Dr. Mohey-ud-din leading the socio-economic components of each plan as an embedded specialist within larger multidisciplinary teams including urban planners, engineers, environmental specialists, and transport planners. His contributions spanned socio-economic baseline analysis, economic profiling, demographic projection support, economic development scenario modelling, and the articulation of economic rationale for land-use and infrastructure investment decisions within each master plan.
Quetta Master Plan
Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, presents one of Pakistan’s most complex urban planning challenges — a rapidly growing city navigating security constraints, informal settlement expansion, resource scarcity, and significant economic vulnerability. The economic component of the Quetta Master Plan involved comprehensive baseline assessment of the city’s economic structure and livelihoods, identification of priority economic development zones, and the economic rationale for strategic infrastructure investment in commercial corridors and industrial areas. The analysis was calibrated to Quetta’s unique security and political economy context.
Cholistan Regional Plan
The Cholistan Region is one of Pakistan’s most distinctive planning environments — a low-density arid zone in southern Punjab with a significant agropastoral economy, limited permanent settlement, and unique development challenges. The regional economic profile documented Cholistan’s economic base including livestock herding, seasonal agriculture, handicrafts, and the emerging potential for eco-tourism and solar energy. The economic dimension of the regional development strategy informed settlement hierarchy decisions and infrastructure investment sequencing across this vast but sparsely populated territory.
Murree City Redevelopment Plan
Murree is Pakistan’s most iconic hill station — a tourism destination that has suffered from over-tourism pressures, inadequate infrastructure, unplanned development, and environmental degradation. The tourism economics and visitor economy assessment for the Murree City Redevelopment Plan documented the economic structure of Murree’s resort economy, the carrying capacity implications of current visitor volumes, and the economic case for infrastructure investment to manage tourism sustainably and upgrade the overall visitor experience.
Bahawalpur Master Plan
Bahawalpur’s Master Plan economic component involved comprehensive urban economic assessment of this mid-sized historic city — including documentation of economic structure, employment patterns, commercial land use, and investment flows. The economic rationale for mixed-use development, heritage tourism activation, and industrial land use decisions was developed to inform spatial planning choices for one of southern Punjab’s most historically and economically significant cities.
Outcomes
Across four distinct planning contexts, these master plan economic components ensured that spatial decisions were grounded in credible economic evidence — strengthening the development logic and credibility of each plan as a planning instrument. The economic narratives, baselines, and scenario analyses provided planners and decision-makers with a clear economic rationale for strategic land use, infrastructure, and investment choices across diverse Pakistani cities and regions.