RAWALPINDI: A World Bank (WB) team on Thursday asked the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) to make its website and the complaint cell functional to help the citizens understand the working of the civic body.

A two-member WB team led Nasir Mehmood during a visit to the RMC offices met Chief Municipal Officer Khalid Goraya and discussed the status of projects initiated in the city under a loan from the bank.

A main delegation from the WB is scheduled to meet the heads of civic bodies on October 31.

The RMC had planned to start projects worth Rs230 million to renovate the municipal library, slaughterhouse and the Pirwadhai general bus stand.

The Punjab government had taken a loan from the WB for the improvement of public infrastructure in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan and Gujranwala. The project was titled ‘World Bank’s Punjab City Governance Improvement Project’.

In 2013, the WB provided a $150 million loan to the Punjab government for improving government infrastructure in the five cities. In the first phase, the Rawalpindi district had received $23.9 million from the loan.

The three-year-long project started in 2013 was supposed to end in 2016. However, due to the change of the local government system the fourth installment could not be released to the cities.

After the formation of the local government, the WB showed an interested in improving the infrastructure of the RMC instead of the district administration.

The WB team will also meet Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) officials as it had received Rs195 million and spent the amount on clearing the electricity bills for tubewells. However, Wasa is also to receive the last installment.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that the installment of loan was stopped as a number of civic bodies in other cities failed to complete their projects. Once they complete the schemes the amount would be released to them, he added.

He said in Rawalpindi the project was completed last month and the administration was waiting for the release of the last installment.

When contacted, the chief municipal officer said the team asked the RMC to make its complaint cell and website functional. “We informed them that the RMC has already established the complaint cell and uploaded tenders on the website.”

However, he said, the team wanted to create awareness among the residents of Rawalpindi about the facility. “The complaint cell was established to cater to the residents of 46 union councils about their issues,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2017