RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) will hand over 1,000 kanals of land at Rakh Dhamial to the Punjab Shehr-i-Khamoshan Authority for the development of a modern graveyard.

The land was given to the RMC in 1996 by the then prime minister Benazir Bhutto for the establishment of a graveyard for the city areas. However, the land could not be developed so far.

The decision to hand over the land to the authority was taken at a meeting held in Lahore with Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the chair. Rawalpindi Mayor Sardar Naseem and acting Commissioner Talat Mehmood Gondal participated in the meeting through a video link from the commissioner office.

The chief minister lamented the commercial use of areas reserved for graveyards in private housing schemes and said the development authorities and other departments should ensure that the private housing schemes used the areas allocated for graveyards for the said purpose and rules and regulations should be strictly followed.

He said he visited Shehr-i-Khamoshan model graveyard a few days ago and observed that decent arrangements had been made there to perform funeral rites.

He directed the authorities to prepare proposals for the establishment of graveyards across the province. The chief minister said the local administration would identify the land and Shehr-i-Khamoshan Authority would construct the graveyard.

The mayor pointed out that a piece of land allocated for the graveyard in the Rawalpindi city was lying vacant. It was decided that the RMC will provide the land to the authority which will develop the graveyard and hand it over to the RMC to manage.

During the last four years, the PML-N provincial government tried to utilise the Rakh Dhamial land for the construction of housing schemes but the local residents opposed the project after which the government had to shelve the plan.

A senior official of the RMC told Dawn that in 2013 the provincial government had released funds for carrying out a survey for the construction of boundary walls around graveyards. It was found that more than 23 graveyards in the city were without boundary walls and had become safe havens for drug users. The graveyards also had no watchmen.

He said an estimate of Rs36 million was proposed but the provincial government did not release a single penny. He said the work to secure the graveyards was not launched yet.

On the other hand, the residents of the garrison city said space at more than 37 graveyards in the city had been shrinking with the passage of time due to encroachments. The shortage of space in the existing graveyards is the basic concern among the residents as the government has not taken the issue seriously.

However, PML-N former MNA Malik Shakil Awan said the provincial government would soon release funds so that the city residents could use the Rakh Dhamial graveyard. He said there was a need to develop graveyards on modern lines on the pattern of the Capital Development Authority in Islamabad.

When contacted, RMC Chief Municipal Officer Khalid Goraya said the government would soon release the funds to procure buses and ambulances for the new graveyard.

He said the work would be completed within two months as the provincial government would release the funds in July. He said homework had been completed for the project which would be implemented on a priority basis.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2017