RAWALPINDI: After 30 years of its establishment, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) is launching its first ever housing scheme even though it has neither funds nor land for it.

A senior official of the RDA told Dawn that the civic agency failed to develop any housing scheme since its inception though it was its main task. It remained busy in development of roads and streets in urban areas.

He said the basic purpose of the civic body was to launch schemes to solve housing problems in the urban areas. He said during the tenure of the previous government the RDA had planned to develop a housing society but failed to launch it due to financial and technical problems.

“The RDA had prepared two plans to generate revenues, including establishment of a housing society on a piece of land allocated for the setting up of a sewerage treatment plant in the Adiala village and construction of a commercial plaza adjacent to the RDA offices near Liaquat Bagh,” he said.

He said the RDA had selected the vacant land purchased by the Punjab government in 2006-07 for the establishment of the sewage treatment plant under the Rawalpindi Environment Improvement Project (REIP) of Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The government acquired the 5,500 kanals from the villagers of Gidhpur, Gorkhpur and Jabar Miana.

Landowners will be offered one kanal developed plot against allocation of four kanals for housing project, RDA chairman says

The land was handed over to the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to secure it.

According to the plan, the plant would treat 150 cusecs of sewage to be used for agricultural activities in the region which mainly rely on rainwater.

However, he said, the housing society plan was rejected by the previous provincial government as it went ahead with the plan to set up sewage treatment plants in five cities - Rawalpindi, Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Multan.

The previous government then asked Wasa to utilise the land which it had procured for in 2006-07 and planning and development department approved the sewage treatment plant project. The government asked the RDA to seek investors’ assistance for launching the housing society but the latter failed.

After formation of the PTI-led government, he said, the housing project became the top priority and the RDA was asked to start work on it. He said the metropolitan planning and traffic engineering wing had started work in this regard.

When contacted, RDA Chairman Arif Abbasi said the civic agency would seek expression of interests from landowners next week to provide land to the RDA for the housing society under public-private partnership.

He said a citizen or a group of citizens having vacant land near a main road could send their expression of interest to the RDA within a month.

He said a person owning at least 2,000 kanals would be eligible to become a partner of the RDA in the housing society.

“The owner would have to provide at least four kanals to the RDA and in return will get one kanal developed plot.”

He said the RDA would get loans from banks and pay it back when the plots are sold. He said no funding was required by the provincial government for the project.

He said the citizens would get developed plots, both domestic and commercial, on easy installments.

“We will give ownership certificates to people soon after the development of the area while providing all facilities of gas, electricity, water, telephone and sewerage system,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2018