RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) is in a quandary over how to keep the cantonment areas clean as it does not have enough money to pay for a new landfill site, and the federal and provincial governments are not ready to help it.

A senior official of the RCB told Dawn that it had planned to acquire 200 kanals of land in Chahan village near Chakri for Rs20 million but the market rate of more than Rs650,000 per kanal was way beyond the capacity of the civic body.

Requests to the Punjab and federal governments to chip in the remainder amount of Rs110 million were turned down, he said.

Even the elected public representatives of the cantonment areas, approached by the RCB, failed to convince ruling party leaders to arrange funds for resolving the problem of garbage disposal.

The problem arose a month ago when the residents of Sangral village, near Chakri, where the garbage was being dumped so far, lodged an FIR with police accusing the RCB of endangering their health and environment. The RCB promised to find an alternative site within a month and move out of the Sangral site it had rented for Rs5,000 per day.

The RCB spokesman, Qiaser Mehmood, told Dawn that the RCB was working to relocate the dumping site but dismissed the Sangral residents’ complaint about the “terrible stench” that the dumping raised in the Chakri union council area.

“They say that foul smell rising from the dump tests their nerves, particularly after rains. It is a strange argument because RCB officials see to it that earth is spread over the garbage dumped each time,” he said.

Mr Mehmood blamed the RCB’s financial woes on the culture of not paying taxes. He said the RCB would be able to improve civic services like acquiring a permanent landfill site when its tax collection improves.

“We don’t get direct funding from the federal or provincial (Punjab) governments and have to run the services from whatever taxes and fees we collect,” he said.

According to the official, the budget of the RCB for the current year allocated Rs20 million for acquiring 200 kanals of land but the market rate of land was much higher.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2016