RAWALPINDI: The district of Rawalpindi is without any five or 10-year development plan due to a lack of interest on part of the bureaucracy.

As a result, the city areas have seen a mushroom growth of housing societies and the residents are without proper civic facilities even though millions of rupees were spent by the government during the last five years.

Though the planning department of the district is executing different projects of the Punjab government it has failed to identify the problems being faced by the residents.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that it was the duty of the planning department to prepare five-year and 10-year plans by conducting surveys of the civic facilities, roads, streets, water supply, sanitation, industrial zones and making plans to expand the city.

Bureaucracy executing projects funded by Punjab govt but is yet to prepare any plan

“The planning department is without any plan and it is working only on the development schemes given by parliamentarians. For example, when an MNA or MPA wants to construct a road in their constituency the department prepares the plan without any homework.”

He said during the last eight years funds were mostly utilised on the construction of roads and schools but still the schools and roads needed an improvement as the funds were spent without a proper plan.

“There is no data available with the district administration about the illegal housing societies. The cabinet committee of the National Assembly took notice of the mushroom growth of illegal housing societies around the New Islamabad Airport in May 2017 after which work to carry out a survey was started,” he said.

“It is the duty of the planning department to prepare plans for the future availability of water and other civic facilities.”

However, the bureaucracy is running the affairs without any plan, he said, adding the provincial government’s focus was to reconstruct roads.

When contacted, former district nazim Raja Tariq Mehboob Kiani said it was the duty of the district administration to prepare a master plan for the district and plans for water supply, sanitation, bazaars, markets and housing societies.

“Unfortunately, there is no planning visible in the district. Under the local government system 2002, the district nazim approved future plans. We planned to shift the grain and other markets out of the city areas and bring water from Chahan and Daducha dams to meet the requirements of the district,” he added.

He said the provincial government should take notice of the lack of interest of the bureaucracy in preparing plans for the future. He said funds had been spent on unnecessary projects which created a mess in the district.

“No new hospital has been constructed in the district. The census data is available with the district administration and it should use it for future planning,” he said.

PTI MPA Arif Abbasi told Dawn there was no master plan available with the district administration.

He said billions of rupees had been spent on schools in Rawalpindi but the students still had to bring drinking water from their homes.

“I raised a question in the Punjab Assembly about encroachment on the forest land and the district administration in a written reply stated that 1,857 acres forest land in the district had been encroached. However, there was no effort to retrieve it,” he said.

The MPA said the forest land was being used for construction of housing societies and the administration was giving permission for it as there was no master plan.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2017