RAWALPINDI: Almost 100 days on, the Punjab government has failed to form the governing body for the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), which has stalled the budget preparation of the apex civic body for the new fiscal year, which starts today.

According to the relevant laws, the governing body, which also includes local lawmakers, is supposed to approve the annual budget. The RDA’s governing body comprises a chairman and 16 members, such as secretaries of finance, local government, and urban development; the Rawalpindi commissioner, deputy commissioner, and mayor; RDA director general; Wasa managing director, three MPAs, and two technical members.

After the exit of the PTI government in 2022, the governing body of the RDA was dissolved and at present, it does not have a chairman or elected members.

The local bureaucracy and the divisional commissioner currently look after its affairs.

PML-N lawmaker says govt to form governing body ‘soon’

An RDA official told Dawn that the development body could not start any new project without the approval from the governing body. He added that the annual RDA budget also needed to be tabled before the apex body for its approval.

According to the official, the governing body devises policies and programmes regarding the environment, housing, water supply, sewerage, and drainage.

“It will take measures to ensure optimum utilisation of resources, ensure economical and effective utilisation of land, approve budget and make regulations…to implement short and long term development projects,” he said.

The elected lawmakers from Rawalpindi are not part of the governing body which would mean that the suggestions from the public would not be accommodated in the budget.

He said that the divisional administration was running the affairs of the authority in the absence of the governing body.

For the same reason, the budget was sent to the Punjab Housing, Urban Development, and Public Health Engineering Department for vetting, and it would take almost a month to approve till the formation of the governing body. RDA Director General Kinza Murtaza was not available for comments. RDA spokesman Hafiz Irfan, however, said that the provincial government would soon form the RDA’s governing body.

Speaking to Dawn, Rawalpindi lawmaker Malik Abrar said the governing bodies across the province would be formed soon. According to the lawmaker, the decision was delayed because of the budget session in the Punjab assembly as the government was focused on completing the quorum for the session.

On the other hand, former RDA chairman and PTI leader Arif Abbasi told Dawn that the Punjab government was oblivious to the problems faced by residents of Pindi, which was evident by the fact that it failed to complete the governing bodies despite the passage of three months.

“During the PTI tenure, we formed the governing bodies to make new plans for the city as the RDA is the primary civic body which looks after the planning for the city, housing societies, and uplift schemes. We changed the building by-laws and launched one-window operations so building plans could be approved without any hurdle,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2024