Rawalpindi UC-36: Industries everywhere but no room for residents

Mayor Naseem says they have chalked up a comprehensive plan to resolve all issues

RAWALPINDI: When Sardar Muhammad Nasim took oath as the mayor of Rawalpindi on the penultimate day of 2016, he listed out a very simple agenda: clear the narrow and clogged streets of the city of encroachment and improve parking along with the flow of traffic in the city.

Over a year later, the union council (UC) from which he was elected is plagued with some of these very problems.

Union council-36, which comprises of the Mohanpura area located right in the heart of Rawalpindi, serves as a mini industrial hub of sorts with workshops for steel and iron works, glassware, spare parts, woodwork, paints, heavy machinery, and auto workshops littering many of its neighbourhoods.

A large number of warehouses in the area attract a number of heavy vehicles including trucks loaded with containers add bulk to the traffic in Mohanpura’s narrow streets.

Together with the mushroom growth of commercial area — which often spills onto the streets, creates chaos for traffic and residents of the area.

The worsening quality of air in the area — with the independently monitored air quality index of the area suggesting that pollution levels were between 97.5 to 105.66 for the area — has badly affected the local population. But it is a little too much for the areas sole dispensary to cope with.

According to a survey of the area, undertaken by Roznama Express, shows that encroachment and illegal parking keep haunting almost all thoroughfares leading to and from the area.

To make matters worse, the area is also hosting one of the largest processing units for scrap metal.

Gol Chowk, a popular roundabout of the locality, is a picture of despair as illegal parking and the use of roadsides as impromptu loading docks by heavy cargo vehicles keeps the traffic jammed for most parts of the day.

While a road had been built between Nullah Leh and Mohanpura to help divide the traffic load, rapid encroachment and commercial activities in the area nullified its impact.

The land mafia apparently seems to stolen space reserved for a park in the union council.

Despite being heavily populated, the UC only has three tube wells and an equal amount of filtration plants to supply clean water to residents. Work for a new sewage system is also underway.



The area has a girls’ high school and a degree college while a primary school operates out of a rented building.

UC Chairman Naseem says that they have finalised a master plan to resolve all issues plaguing the locality.

The authorities, he assured, have put together a comprehensive plan to get rid of the heavy industries and warehouses which dot the area.

Moreover, other problems of the locality would also be addressed on a priority basis.

On the other hand, the UC’s Vice Chairman Gulfaraz Jadoon said that they have chalked up a separate plan for the beautification of the union council which would see all the six passages leading to the locality decorated.

Moreover, he added that the UC has 100 street lights set up in various parts, while approval has been granted to install a further 150 LED lights.

“The locality’s gates will be named after notable social and religious personalities, including companions of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH),” the vice chairman said.

Claiming that the hygiene situation in the Mohanpura locality has been steadily improving, the authorities are facing challenges in removing commercial settlements in the area.

Responding to a question about land for a park which has been encroached, he simply pointed out that they had about eight kanals of land which could be used to build a park.

The local government’s efforts to force the illegal commercial settlements and encroachment off the streets have been met with support from various serving and former councillors of the locality.

“If the authorities get rid of all illegal businesses and encroachment,” the councillors said, “Mohanpura can return to its peaceful past”

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2018.