July 29, 2007	Sunday	Rajab 13, 1428

LAHORE, July 28: The Punjab government has decided to computerise the record of all high-rises in at least five big cities of the province to ensure implementation of new building bylaws.

This was stated at a meeting held by the local government department here on Saturday. The meeting was attended by city district Nazim Mian Amer, DCO and other officials concerned.

Officials said the computerisation of high-rises was being launched initially in Lahore under a pilot project. The system would later be extended to other city districts in Punjab, including Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Multan.

They said a sample computerised form was given to the Lahore nazim for distribution among all town municipal officers in the city for their comments.

They said the town municipal offices would be linked to the city district government’s computer data bank to ensure a uniform approach on the multi-storey buildings. This would also help authorities keep an eye on the construction of high-rises within the limits of every city district, the officials said.

During the meeting, all Lahore towns were directed to have the model building bylaws approved from their respective councils and then report the matter to the city district government. The LDA officials too were asked to follow the model bylaws without any fail.

Meanwhile, sources said the local government department had started preparing estimates about the creation of the posts of Building Control EDOs and their subordinate staff in the five city district governments. They said the posts would be created after making an overall budget relating to the salaries of the officers, their junior staff and expenditures of their offices, transport etc.

The district governments had been asked to provide a detail of the required budget to be provided by the provincial government, they said. It could take some time to introduce the centralised office of EDO (Building Control) to deal with all construction activity in a city district government.