RAWALPINDI, May 16: The city's three main civic agencies - Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA), Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) - suffer from duplication of responsibilities and bureaucratic and autocratic attitudes of management.

This was stated in an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-sponsored study. "Autocratic and bureaucratic attitudes of managers and service providers, lack of working as a business, absence of intra- and inter-agency coordination, limited consumer coverage and inadequate and improper assets are together adversely affecting both quality and quantity and delivery of services," it said.

All this happens at a time when all the three agencies are headed by the same person who is wearing three hats of chairman RDA and Wasa and tehsil Nazim. "The three agencies though under the same person do not have any coordination amongst the servicing directorates, consequently the service delivery in the entire city is haphazard and suffers from efficiency and quality with the user as the ultimate sufferer," it added.

The devolution, the study said, had created a situation where everyone is sitting and waiting for the ultimate change to materialise. Calling for fine-tuning of the Local Government Ordinance 2001, the ADB study stated that the ordinance had to be followed by refining of laws and \ institutions dealing with municipal functions.

It suggested that the RDA, Wasa and the TMA need to redefine their functions, clearly divide their assignments and responsibilities, the delivery system procedures besides specifying their staffing needs.

The status of development authorities (RDA and TMA) and Wasa under the new local governance system is not clear, it said and added that it was not clear who was responsible for policy making and how the three service providers coordinated and extended delivery.

Stressing on independent functioning of officials, it said: "to meet the goals of proper delivery and sustainability, officials concerned have to be empowered to carry out their functions effectively and independently."

The panacea for these ills lies in shifting the perception about the agencies from providers to partners. Besides, special emphasis need to be placed on increasing public awareness and community participation as key constraints to effective delivery of urban services include among other factors the lack of stakeholder participation in planning, design and implementation of development projects.

Giving an overview of the present situation, the reports said that the TMA, which should be responsible for overall delivery and management of municipal services, was only looking after drainage and solid waste management and that too with a very limited coverage.

Similarly, Wasa, which has to be responsible for important functions like water and supply and sanitation, has also limited the scope and jurisdiction of its services.