RAWALPINDI, Dec 16: Building a house in the cantonment areas has become an uphill task due to complicated map-approval procedure of the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB), the residents told Dawn.

The Board does not even have the required building staff, which includes land superintendent, assistant land superintendent and town planner. This also adds up to the residents’ difficulties in building a house.

A mere approval of a map takes six months to years due to the non-availability of the concerned staff and the complicated and the lengthy procedure.

To begin with, any person who wants to construct a house in the cantonment jurisdiction has to submit his map to the RCB. The civic body starts formal procedure which includes scrutiny of the land, i.e. whether or not the land shown in the map actually belongs to the person concerned. This process can take two to three months.

Then the map is srcutinized form municipal point of view to check whether it features proper sewerage system, parking facilities, and that the building will not jeopardize the privacy of neighbours. This process takes another three to four months.

When these two procedures are completed, the map goes to the Building Committee for further scrutiny and formal approval. Then comes the turn of the final approval by the Board, which comprises the station commander, the chief executive officer, the vice-president and other members.

However, the process does not end here, and after approval from the station commander, the map is sent to three designated officers for ratification. These are: the RCB engineer, the executive of the building branch concerned, and the land superintendent.

All these formalities take months or even years, depending upon the status of the person who intends to build a house. An influential person can get through all these stages in a week- time, but for a commoner it is a daunting task that can take years to materialize. Some people get discouraged to the extent that they loose heart and abandon all plans to build a house, the residents said.

The RCB chief executive officer, Iftikhar Mir, when asked to comment on the situation, admitted that there were hurdles in the map-approval procedure. “We ourselves are not satisfied with building section”, he said. He, however, termed the non- availability of the required land staff as the main cause of the delay in approving maps.

He said they had requested the government to appoint competent personnel on the three posts lying vacant in the land department. “We also plan to launch a one-window-operation to solve people’s problems on the spot”, he said, adding that proper office place was being searched for the purpose.