RAWALPINDI: A ruling party lawmaker from Rawalpindi on Monday threw a proposal in his speech on the federal budget in the National Assembly seeking merger of civilian areas of the cantonment in municipal corporation or Potohar Town.

The MNA from Rawalpindi Malik Ibrar Ahmed of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) also called for bringing Cantonment General Hospital under the control of the Punjab government.

He said under the Cantonment Amended Act 2023, the provincial government would provide development funds to cantonment boards from National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.

Malik Ibrar, who is also PML-N divisional president, highlighted various issues and the water shortage is one of the biggest one the residents of the cantonment face. He said Rawalpindi was the largest cantonment in the country and it was divided into Rawalpindi and Chaklala Cantonment Boards with population of 1.8 million.

“The cantonment areas are being provided water from Khanpur Dam and under the sharing formula, the share of both cantonments is 19 million gallon daily (MGD) but both do not receive water as per share which created its shortage,” he said.

He expressed the hope that the government would allocate funds for repairing leakages in supply line from Khanpur dam which would improve water share of Capital Development Authority, Water and Sanitation Agency and Rawalpindi, Chaklala cantonment boards.

He said that in cantonment areas, there was enough overhead and underground water tanks but most of them were lying empty due to less water from the dam. He said that the government should look into this matter.

He said the population of Rawalpindi Cantonment is one million and Chaklala Cantonment had 800,000 but they were still divided in 10 wards each. “The areas of civilian population should be handed over to municipal corporation or Potohar town. This would make provisionof civic facilities to the population hassle free,” he said.

He said that in 2017, the then PML-N government had provided grant to improve the condition of the Cantonment General Hospital with 500 beds but its condition was worst as the management had no funds to deal with patients from civilian population properly.

“The hospital should be handed over to centre but ideally to the Punjab government so the civilian residents could get better medical health care facilities,” he said.

Talking about education system, Malik Ibrar said the Supreme Court had directed the cantonement administration to clear the residential areas of cantonment from private educational institutions.

“After the 18th Amendment, quota system is no more in practice in provinces but federal government education institutions were still following it,” he said.

He said that for lease of the old properties, DC rate of the property has been increased during the last few years which should be revised downward.

“The policy should be revised in consultation with stakeholders and should also be rationalized,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2024