RAWALPINDI: Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation (RMC) will chalk out a plan on Friday (today) to conduct the traffic survey of different entry and exit points of the garrison city to access traffic load on roads for a new master plan.

A senior official of RMC told Dawn that Punjab Local Government and Community Development department had awarded the contract for land use and zooming plan of Rawalpindi tehsil to a private firm MOT Macdonald Pakistan Private limited.

He said that traffic management and transportation studies are a pivotal portion of the master plan and the firm required traffic surveys at different entry and exit points and other inter-sections of the garrison city to access the traffic load and patterns of inter and intra city commuters.

He said that the detail working plan for different surveys would be finalised on Feb 3 and in this regard, traffic police, Regional Transport Authority, Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), Mass TransportAuthority, district council and RMC officials had been invited for meeting.

He said after the surveys, the firm would suggest road improvement, commercialisation and other uplift plans, adding that after the master plan, the city would be divided in zones for industry, commercial, residential and green areas.

It may be mentioned here that the same firm launched work on the master plan for two tehsils of Rawalpindi district.

“The basic aim of the master plan was to identify the areas in twotehsilsof the district to allocate for industry, commercial, housing schemes and educational purposes and it will also put a red line on the green area where no structure will be constructed in farms,” saida senior official of RDA.

He said that in the first step,RDAmade a plan for twotehsilsincluding Gujar Khan and Kallar Syedan and after approval of it, a plan will be made forTaxila and Kahuta during the next month.

He said that the government assigned the task toRDAto make a master plan forfourtehsilsof Rawalpindi while for the fifth tehsil, the local government hired the same consultant for the master plan.

According to procedure, he said that the District Planning and Development Committee will review the plan for Gujar Khan and Kallar Syedan and will hold public hearing and after rectifying objections, the deputy commissioner will notify the areas allocated for industry, commercial, residential and green area in thesetehsils.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2023