RAWALPINDI: After the transfer of the divisional commissioner, the seats of director general Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and the administrator of Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) have also fallen vacant.

In February 2026, RDA Director General Kinza Murtaza was transferred and the then commissioner Abdul Aamer Khattak was given the additional charge. In the last five months, the Punjab government did not appoint any permanent director general in the civic body.

In the fiscal year 2025-26, RDA failed to launch any project and its main focus was on the management of housing schemes only.

All development projects such as Kutchery Chowk and the construction of flyovers were given to Communication and Works Department while the flagship project -- Rawalpindi Ring Road -- was being run by the Project Management Unit (PMU) under the commissioner.

A senior official of the RDA said there was a dire need for the appointment of a permanent director general in the RDA and the chairman of the governing body, so development activities would be launched.

He said the governing body formulated policies for the civic body and the director general implemented. He said that there was no policy on the expansion of Murree Road, Leh Expressway and other projects and in such a situation the government did not include them in the annual development programme.

RMC is also being run by the divisional commissioner as an additional charge and it also failed to launch any development scheme except the construction of pedestrian streets in Raja Bazaar and Commercial Market, which also could not be complete in a year.

Apart from this, RMC failed to launch any development scheme such as construction of roads, streets and improvement of streetlights.

Many people are of the view that in the absence of the local government, the provincial government was running civic bodies on an ad hoc basis due to which they failed to focus on their main work of development and improvement of existing facilities.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that the civic bodies failed to start projects like construction of parking plazas.

“The administration almost completed work on pedestrian streets in Raja Bazaar and Commercial Market but failed to construct parking plazas,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2026