RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has not launched any uplift schemes in the garrison city this fiscal year yet.

The civic agency had allocated Rs1.65 billion for development projects in the 46 union councils of the city areas for the fiscal year 2017-18 but no work has been initiated yet for the construction of roads, streets and drains according to the recommendations of UC chairpersons.

A senior RMC official told Dawn the funds have been allocated but the civic body has no plans for utilising them.

“At present, the UC chairpersons were given Rs3 million each as well as the 17 members elected on reserved seats but these funds are for the ongoing schemes from the fiscal year 2016-17,” he said.

The official added that the RMC had collected schemes for 2017-18 from all elected representatives as the government wanted to give them Rs5 million each for uplift schemes, which are still pending.

He said the RMC wants to construct a parking plaza where its old offices were and was saving money for the project in which no private investor had shown interest.

The provincial government was contacted in regards to launching the parking plaza project but no response has been received yet, he said.

The official said the provincial government was reluctant to give the money to the civic agency as so much money had been spent on the orange train and in the by-elections in Nawaz Sharif’s constituency.

“The RMC plans to spend the Rs300 million it will receive from the World Bank on the improvement of the municipal library, slaughter house and the Pirwadhai general bus stand and the money generated from its own sources will be spent on the parking plaza,” he said.

The Rs300 million left over from last year will be spent on ongoing uplift schemes of this fiscal year, he said, and that the RMC wanted to award contracts for its development works but the contractors are refusing to get the contracts before their previous bills are cleared.

The official added that Rs670 million was available with the district accounts department and will be released soon.

When asked, RMC opposition member Sheikh Rashid Shafique said the ruling PML-N has not spent money on the development of the city and that the main roads have been in need of repairs for the last many years.

He alleged that the parking plaza project will be initiated for commissions as small development projects will not earn a lot of commissions.

He explained that his UC received Rs3 million in the last fiscal year but no new schemes for the construction of streets, roads and footpaths have been approved by the civic body.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2017