October 22, 2007	Monday	Shawwal 9, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Oct 21: Over two years down the road since the formation of the City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) in 2005, the sitting nazims of the governing party cannot boastfully claim to have undertaken a single project that has so far become visible to the residents of the city.

Except for constructing a luxurious building of the Town Municipal Administration (TMA), Potohar Town and a hall in TMA Rawal Town and renovating a few other government departments, the CDGR has miserably failed to complete a mega project that could provide relief to the residents.

Even the long-awaited projects including construction of overhead bridge on Murree Road, widening of Saidpur Road, Cherrah and Daducha dams, construction of the much-needed Ring Road, beautification campaign, and sewage and drainage project have yet not been accomplished.

The elected councillors affiliated with the opposition parties say that no mega project has been undertaken in the eight towns of the district except for concreting a few streets and laying a small network of water supply lines.

Opposition leader in Rawal Town Council Sohail Pasha told this reporter that the condition of civic infrastructure in the 46 union councils of the city was the same as was before the implementation of the devolution plan.

“The local government system could not change the face of Rawalpindi as was anticipated and has rather multiplied the miseries of people due to clash among departments over power and jurisdiction,” Mr Pasha said.

He said the poor efficiency of the CDGR could be judged from the fact that it was still holding its council sessions at private hotels and clubs as it failed to construct its own building for convening its monthly sessions.

The city district government’s promise that it would launch air-conditioned transport buses in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad also proved to be a hollow slogan, leaving passengers at the mercy of wagon operators who were not only notorious for their behaviour with commuters but also failed to complete the assigned routes.

Even the sanitary activities in the city have also come to a halt as the district administration has failed to recruit the required number of sanitary staff while the existing sanitation squad is running without any supervising official after the executive district officer (EDO) municipal services tendered resignation two months ago due to differences with the district administration.

However, when contacted, City Nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas expressed satisfaction over the performance of CDGR though he could not name the projects undertaken or completed during his two-year tenure as the city nazim.

Insiders said various departments in the city were also running short of their revenue targets due to a rift between towns and district administration over the control of income- generating sources — the fact also acknowledged by DCO Irfan Elahi.

Interestingly, the City District Government Rawalpindi has not yet managed to overcome sewage and drainage problems in the city despite receiving Rs5.14 million soft loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under Rawalpindi Environment Improvement Project (REIP).

The residents are bedevilled by sewage and sanitation problems though they are heavily taxed after the ADB reportedly asked the municipal agencies to increase civic taxes in order to return the loan to the bank.