By Minahil Makhdoom
ISLAMABAD: Capital Development Authority (CDA) has launched a campaign ‘Light up Islamabad’ to restore the splendor of ‘Islamabad the Beautiful’. The campaign, headed by Member Finance, CDA, Rana Shakeel would resolve the capital city issues, highlighted by the residents on the ‘Light up Islamabad’ app, to be launched soon.
He said, the suggestions and feedback from the citizens to make the federal capital better and more beautiful would be welcomed. Shakeel said it had been felt since a long by the residents that the concerned formations were not paying attention to civic issues such as sanitation, water supply, road maintenance, dysfunctional street lights and others.
Taking cognizance over the growing concerns by the locals , the federal government had decided to place four major directorate of Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) under the administrative control of CDA to ‘ensure smooth and effective service delivery in the city and to ease the difficulties being faced by its citizens,’ he said.
The directorates included, Environment Wing, Sanitation and City Sewerage, Water supply and Sewerage Development and the engineering wing, Machinery Pool Organization(MPO). Various teams had been formed in four newly shifted directorates to carryout the work at fast pace, and city will see an improvement in few weeks, he said.
“We will run this campaign together,†he said and sought the cooperation of islooites to make the campaign successful. CDA spokesperson, Mazhar Hussain stated that chairman have chalked out a comprehensive plan for rapid improvement in the city. Under the plan, Environment directorate will install security cameras in various parks of the city in collaboration with police to keep check on vile elements and to provide safe and secure environment to the visitors.
The special teams continued removing wild bushes and rank vegetation across the city. A mechanism was being evolved with safe city project to discourage and penalize littering by motorists on roads, he added. He said the capacity of Sanitation directorate was being enhanced and the tender to aquire around 100 large garbage containers and 500 trash trolleys has been floated.
He said the Engineering Wing started maintenance and carpeting of major and service roads, while tracks in parks will be rehabilitated and street lights will be made functional by paying off the pending dues. Meanwhile, Raja Khurram Nawaz, a local Member of the National Assembly (MNA) termed government’s move of transferring the key civic departments to the CDA, a new beginning of transforming Islamabad into a model city under the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
He said that no development work was carried out even in a single Union Council (UC) of Islamabad by the MCI, functioning under the chairmanship of Sheikh Anser. “It was the public who borne the brunt of his politics and slackness,†he added. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on CDA Affairs, Ali Nawaz said the civic work in the city gained momentum, following shifting of four formations of MCI to CDA.
To improve water supply to the city , he said an authority along the lines of WASA will be created in the federal capital. A contract had been signed for provision of 200 million gallons of water per day for Islamabad and Rawalpindi from the Ghazi Barotha Dam. The SAPM said the contract for adding two more lanes to 10 kilometer long IJ Principal Road and for its maintenance would be given in the next three months.
He said the government had spent Rs two billion on the development projects of rural areas in Islamabad while another Rs two billion would be spent in the next phase on more projects in the 32 union councils of Islamabad.
CDA, he said would provide land for construction of a slaughter house with the public private partnership. He told that 17 Basic Health Units were revamped and staff would be hired to meet the medical needs of the people.
CDA had allocated five acres of land for building a hospital in G-11 while a 200 bed facility will be established in Tarnol. He said the rural areas of Islamabad were without a graveyard and now 10 acre land had been allocated and the tender would be issued for the project.
