RAWALPINDI, Sept 3: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) has decided to develop landfill site at Chakri Road for which it will procure 180 kanals.

“The landfill site will have a boundary wall whereas the existing one at Dhoke Gujran at Misrial Road will be converted into a housing scheme,” said RCB Cantonment Executive Officer Rana Manzoor Ahmed Khan, while talking to Dawn.

He said that the RCB would procure the land at the rate of Rs90,000 per marla and the total cost of the land would be Rs32.4 million.

He said the civic body had invited parties interested in selling their land in the area and shortlisted three of them.

He said the procurement of land would start from next week and a three-member committee headed by Additional Cantonment Executive Officer Shakeel Anwar Jappa would monitor the whole process.

The cantonment executive officer said that the RCB had planned to convert the landfill site measuring 360 kanals into a housing scheme. He said that the work on the project would be launched after shifting the landfill site to new place.

He said this was the first time that the RCB was venturing into the housing project that was why it had consulted the Capital Development Authority (CDA) experts and the private housing scheme developers.

He said that the RCB had worked on a housing scheme at Chakra but it was meant for low-paid employees of the ministry of defence at 35 acres. However, he said this would be the first housing scheme for the general public.

He said the RCB would convert the land into small pieces of land measuring 5-10 marlas, and the scheme would have shopping mall, mosque, park and a proper road and sewerage network.

The decision to shift the landfill site was taken after the Punjab Environment Protection Agency (Punjab-EPA) issued notice to the RCB saying the dumping of solid waste at its present site posed health hazards to the residents of adjoining areas.

An environment tribunal also visited the place and found that the RCB had failed to adopt proper measures to dispose of the garbage collected from the cantonment.

However, the RCB was first reluctant to shift the site as it would increase the fuel charges, but it had to give in to the orders of the environment tribunal orders which also put the civic body in difficult situation as no vacant land was available around the cantonment areas.

Strangely, the sanitation department of the RCB is dumping hospital waste in the landfill site without adopting precautionary measures.

The improper disposal of the hospital waste may pose health hazards to the local residents.