Model Town, Lahore

Model Town is one of the residential suburbs of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It is located next to Faisal Town, Gulberg, Garden Town and Township suburbs of Lahore.

Model Town, established in 1921, was the fruition of Dewan Khem Chand’s lifelong dream to see the establishment of a “Garden Town”. Advocate Khem Chand’s unshakeable belief in the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity are the values of cooperation upon which the principles of co-operative societies are founded and also the reason why Model Town was established as and still is a co-operative society.

On Sunday, 27 February 1902, about 200 persons assembled in Lahore's Town Hall under the chairmanship of Rai Bahadur Ganga Ram and decided to establish a cooperative housing society to be named as a garden town.

The meeting approved Diwan Khem Chand's proposed housing scheme based on cooperative principles in the suburbs of Lahore to solve housing problems and also to provide improved sanitary and better living facilities for the residents, and thus the government was requested to provide a 2000-acre (4 km²) plot of land.

The residents of Model Town, who owned their spacious houses, were retired judges, rich businessmen, traders and upmarket store-owners. Many high court judges, doctors and engineers had also moved to Model Town from the city. Included among the residents of this best laid-out residential estate of Lahore were college professors and officers of the civil service. The communist leader BPL Bedi, who had studied at British and German universities, lived here. His son Kabir Bedi became a famous actor in post-independence India. As of March 2015, Saifur Rehman was elected president of the Model Town Society, marking his second term in office.

A preliminary committee of 21 members was formed under the chairmanship of Khan Bahadur Sir Sh. Abdul Qadir to frame the by-laws and to carry out other necessary work in connection with the formation of the society. As a result, The Cooperative Model Town Society Limited was formed and subsequently registered under the Cooperative Societies Act II of 1912 in 1924. The principle objectives of the Society were:

On 1 April 1941, the Government of the Punjab transferred 1,963 acres (7.9 km²) situated in Rakh, Kot Lakhpat Tehsil, District, Lahore and the transfer deed was registered with the Sub-Registrar, Lahore, on 25 April 1941.

...
Wikipedia