RDA opens daycare centre for women employees

Facility will offer live streaming for mothers to monitor their children

RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has opened a daycare centre for its female  employees where they can leave their children in professional care.

The 46th meeting of RDA on Saturday approved establishment of more daycare centres. “We want to provide every kind of facility to women employees working in RDA in order to make them feel safe and secure,” RDA Chairman Tariq Mehmood Murtaza said.

He said the centre has space for only 10 children but, he assured, it would be expanded in the future. “We hope other government institutions establish similar facilities,” Murtaza said.

RDA has hired two babysitters for the dacycare centre. The authority has also developed a special mobile application through which the working mothers could see live streaming of their children at any time during working hours.

For entertaining minors, a television set and different kinds of toys would be kept in the room while the walls would be painted with different cartoon characters.

The centre will have comfortable couches and a heater as well to keep the room temperature warm during the ongoing cold wave in Rawalpindi. The centre will also have cribs for infants.

The female employees have hailed the decision to facilitate them and said that earlier, they used to leave their children at  home under the supervision of a babysitter or at any relative’s home. They expressed that now their children would remain in front of their eyes in a safe environment which would help them focus on their work.

Approvals granted

The meeting approved the proposal for allowing 100-feet tall buildings along GT Road which could earlier not exceed 60 feetin  height. Similarly, the limitation of 38 feet height on other commercial roads has been revised to 65 feet.

The meeting chaired by Murtaza was attended by RDA Director General (DG) Ammara Khan, Managing Director (MD) Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) Muhammad Tanvir and MPAs including Latasib Satti, Nasreen Tariq, and officials concerned.

The authority has decided to go for a third-party audit on the implementation of RDA building bylaws in all 48 legal housing societies along with finding out whether Senator Tanvir Khan’s house was built on government land or not.

Further, the meeting approved outsourcing building control monitoring for which RDA would seek expression of interest (EOI). The extension of Information Technology (IT) Wing and hiring of employees through National Testing Service (NTS) was also approved in the meeting.

The board gave go ahead to a 10 per cent increment in development charges of deputy commissioner (DC) rates for land, moreover construction on plots adjoining 13 RDA housing schemes was also approved. The board further approved increment in support allowance for employees in basic pay scale (BPS) one to eight. The participants also approved the rain harvesting system in the garrison city according to which no-objection certificate (NOC) for a house would be now issued only on the installation of a water tank for storing rainwater.

Under the pilot project, the RDA would install water storage tanks in the RDA office, metro stations on Liaquat Bagh Committee Chowk and Sunheri Mosque. The rainwater collected from these sites would be utilised for watering plants in Liaquat Bagh. The project would be initiated with the help of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA).

MoU signed for pilot project

RDA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Turkish Non-Government Organisation (NGO) IHH for the pilot project of poultry and goats distribution in urban and rural areas. Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, known by its Turkish initials IHH representative Ali Cooch and RDA Chairman Tariq Murtaza signed the document at the RDA office on Saturday.

The Punjab Poultry Livestock Department would provide technical assistance in the project.

Under the pilot project, the NGO would distribute five hens and a cockerel each to some 1,000 households along with a chicken coop. The underprivileged families for this purpose would be selected and registered by RDA.

Similarly, the families living in rural areas of Rawalpindi would be given a pair of goats for the production of milk and meat.

RDA chairman said that the authority has launched another project after the kitchen gardening project which was commendable. He added that it would bring ease in people’s lives. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2020.