RAWALPINDI: A meeting called to settle a dispute between the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) was postponed after officials of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration refused to attend as they did not have permission from the interior ministry to do so.

The meeting was held at Station Headquarters on Tuesday with Station Commander Brigadier Hassan Raza in the chair and with officials from the land branch of the CDA and RCB attending.

However, ICT officials refused to attend as they did not have permission from the interior ministry to attend and requested Station Headquarters to write a letter to the ministry so that the officials could attend the meeting.

Residents of ‘disputed’ area taking advantage of disagreement; do not pay property tax to either civic body

Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner Talat Mehmood Gondal was also not available as he was summoned by the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench in a case regarding encroachments in the city areas. He was invited to the meeting and was to produce the land record of the district in order to settle the dispute between the RCB and CDA over 2,790 acres of land on the boundary between Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The meeting was therefore postponed till Jan 12 and the ICT administration agreed to attend the meeting on Thursday, after it received directions from the interior ministry to do so.

The CDA and RCB are in disagreement over land along IJ Principle Road and Peshawar Road. The RCB says it is facing a loss of between Rs4 million an dRs5 million a year from property tax as more than 25,000 houses are located in this area.

“When RCB officials tried ending the issue of non-conforming use of buildings in the area, owners presented them with papers according to which the land was registered with the ICT and the CDA when the area actually comes under RCB’s Ward 10,” a senior RCB official told Dawn. He added that RCB has installed tube wells and had laid down the water supply system in the area.

“We tried to cut off the water connection in the area when locals refused to pay the civic body the water fee and after the people complained, we decided to clear the confusion with the ICT and CDA first,” he said.

He said that due to the confusion, residents were not paying property tax to the CDA or the RCB and that the issue should be resolved.

“RCB has the land records notified in 1956,” he said, adding that the land department of the ICT administration and the Rawalpindi district administration were also invited to the meeting to verify the records available for them.

On the other hand, a senior CDA official maintained that the said area fell under CDA jurisdiction according to a notification of 1981.

“The area also falls under the limits of the Noon police station, which covers I-14, I-15, I-16, Jhangi Sayyidan, Haji Camp, Madina Colony, Faisal Colony and others,” he said.

He added that the Islamabad police looked after the area, which falls under the limits of Islamabad, which can be seen in the records available with the ICT administration.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2017