There are parks in all the sub-sectors of the capital, most of which are dilapidated and in need of repairs and maintenance, but they garner little attention from the concerned authorities.

These parks used to be the responsibility of the CDA, but after the formation of the local government they were handed over to the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) which does not have the funds to carry out repairs.

Sources said only a few out of the city’s 200 parks — such as Fatima Jinnah Park and Lake View Park — are relatively maintained.

An MCI official said parks were maintained under former CDA chairman Kamran Lashari, but fell into disrepair due to neglect on the part of the authority.

MCI will begin maintenance of 30 parks using its own funds, chief metropolitan officer says

Today, the equipment in most of these parks is broken and other civic work is not being carried out.

No major repairs or horticultural activity has been carried out in the last decade, G-7 resident Mohammad Arshad said.

“Beautiful, well-maintained parks used to be a signature of the capital city, but because of negligence by the civic authority parks in the capital now appear dirty,” one MCI official said, adding that sports grounds have also fallen victim to neglect.

Several grounds, including the G-7/4 football ground and the G-7 hockey ground have been stripped of cables and floodlights by unknown elements.

MCI officials said the maintenance of parks should be priority for the corporation, as citizens have complained about the condition of these facilities.

Officials from the MCI’s sports directorate also said that following the MCI’s formation funds were not released for the maintenance of grounds.

Theysaid some cricket grounds are under illegal possession by people associated with the Islamabad Cricket Association, while the remaining grounds are unattended as no attention is being given to upgrading these facilities.

The G-7 hockey ground is a good example of neglect on the part of the civic authorities.

The ground was upgraded in 2006 with a budget of Rs1 million, with which the CDA installed 36 floodlights, 12 field lights, two goal nets and a grill around the entire premises. Today, all these facilities are missing.

When parks and grounds were the CDA’s responsibility, the authority did carry out some minor repairs, MCI officials said. Since the local government elections at the end of 2015, when all these facilities were devolved to the MCI, the situation changed entirely.

The federal government has never released funding to the MCI. An employee, who asked not to be named, said: “We are facing a shortage of funding to fix broken water pipelines, what to talk about renovating parks.”

The official said that the last government had approved funding for an unapproved Rs350m project titled the Beautification of Islamabad through Horticulture and Improvement of Existing Parks and Playgrounds for the 2018-19 fiscal year, for which Rs150m had been earmarked for the ongoing fiscal year.

However, the PTI government’s mini-budget slashed funding for the project under a decision not to fund any unapproved projects.

When contacted, Chief Metropolitan Officer Syed Najaf Iqbal said the MCI has not received funding from the government for development work in the city despite all its efforts. With its rules and regulations incomplete, the corporation also cannot spend the funds it generates from municipal services.

However, the MCI’s elected house recently decided to adopt the CDA’s financial rules for a three-month period so that it could use its own funds for necessary development, he said. He added that the MCI has decided to repair and maintain 30 parks, 15 each on the east and west sides of the capital, and work in this regard will start soon.

The MCI had prepared a 100-day plan on the federal government’s direction that included the rehabilitation of 50 parks but no work was done within the stipulated timeframe.

The MCI did get a few parks and grounds renovated by business firms as part of corporate social responsibility last year.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2019