RDA to digitise housing schemes’ records in Rawalpindi: DG

Ammara says will introduce one-window operation in authority

RAWALPINDI: Records of all existing housing schemes in Rawalpindi will be digitised and the entire system will be automated shortly, the new Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) Director General (DG) Ammara Khan said on Wednesday.

“RDA will be made an affective institution with the introduction of a transparency-based system,” Ammara said in an interview with The Express Tribune.

Talking about her immediate target she said that RDA would prepare a comprehensive plan for start working on the Rawalpindi Masterplan 2020-2040.

The DG asserted that in the next three to six months, she would succeed in devising and enforcing a transformation policy in the civic agency.

Ammara said the one-window operation was successfully running in health and other departments in the district, adding that they would establish the same system in RDA.

To a question, she expressed, “Our priority is to launch development projects for the people of Rawalpindi and ensuring smooth provision of amenities to the people as per modern standards.”

DG said that the completion of ongoing development schemes was not their only target but, she added, finishing them by keeping all standards in place was also a task. She told that she had already visited all the development sites.

Talking about the dilapidated roads in the city, Ammara said that the mega projects including Ring Road and Leh Expressway and others would be given full attention.

She urged the people to bring their complaints in RDA’s notice and assured that they would be addressed at earliest.

Answering a question regarding the long-pending RDA housing scheme, DG said that she had taken up the matter because it was a significant project for the authority itself.

Khan expressed that apart from the development schemes in Rawalpindi, it was her target to establish administrative discipline in the authority as only then they would be able to produce the results expected by the masses.

RDA to fill seats via PSC

The Director General (DG) Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) Ammara Khan has sent a letter to the Secretary Housing Punjab for filling-up 12 seats of Assistant Directors through Punjab Public Service Commission (PSC).

The letter stated that some 18 of 34 seats of basic pay scale (BPS) were vacant in RDA. The DG suggested filling up the seats at earliest so that the working of the authority could be improved.

Currently, the authority is functioning with inadequate strength and the significant posts still vacant. The town planning department lacks a land acquisition collector, three deputy directors (DDs), nine assistant directors (ADs), 11 building inspectors. Meanwhile, the engineering department is operating without a chief engineer and a director. Apart from this, the department is also short of two DDs and three ADs. The seats in the estate management department including two each DDs and ADs are also seeking deployments whereas the Director of the department Muhammad Anwar Barran has been deputed to housing foundation recently.

The only regular engineer working in the authority is Amir Rasheed Waila.

The posts of the chief engineer and land acquisition collector are still unfilled despite that RDA is the executive agency in two mega projects including Ring Road and Leh Expressway.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2019.