RAWALPINDI: Commissioner retired Captain Mohammad Mehmood said all such roads in Rawalpindi division should be identified, on which commercial activity may start in the next ten years and the ones on which illegal commercial activity has started.

A survey should be conducted at the tehsil level in all districts of the division and a report in this regard should be submitted to the commissioner’s office within two weeks, he added.

These instructions were given during a meeting to review illegal commercial activities in residential areas. The meeting was attended by Development and Finance Director Nazia Parveen Sundhan, Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation Chief Officer Ali Abbas Bukhari, representatives from Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and other concerned officials.

The commissioner said that commercial roads have their own separate rules according to which commercial activities are reviewed and monitored on them, adding, there are many roads which have not been declared commercial while plazas and hotels have been built on them.

He said hotels are also open in Murree near the proposed The Mall 2 on the expressway and commercial activities are going on therein even though it is not a regular commercial road.

All deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, concerned officials of RDA and metropolitan corporation should personally supervise the survey regarding commercial roads keeping in view future requirements and the trend of urban population growth in the coming years, he said, adding with passing of the declaration that commercial roads, plazas and buildings are to be constructed on them, it will be easier to adopt all requirements of the future and designs of constructed roads would also improve.

He said that implementation of all relevant laws regarding commercial roads should be ensured so that the revenue of the government could increase and people would also get better facilities like parking.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2020