The Punjab government has rejected the Parks and Horticulture Authority's (PHA) summary for the development of five rainwater harvesting projects in Rawalpindi.
Sources said that the funds proposed for the schemes in the new financial year 2022-23 have been suspended, after the development projects were declared as futile and useless. The cost of these projects was estimated at Rs200 million.
The authority had submitted proposals to include these five projects in the Annual Development Programme for the new financial year. The proposed schemes included projects for the management of rainwater, including reducing floodwaters and building underground water tanks to protect rainwater from standing in parks.
These water tanks were to be built on one side in all major parks in Rawalpindi and the accumulated water was planned to be used for irrigation of parks, trees planted throughout the city and for office cleaning.
Earlier, former PHA chairman Asif Mehmood had built two such large water tanks.
Apart from this, the Rawalpindi Development Authority has also put forward project proposals to make the ablution areas of mosques, the funds for which are also likely to be rejected. In addition, the new Punjab government has also suspended funds for all ongoing development schemes introduced under the previous government. All the ongoing development schemes of the previous government have been closed down due to which hundreds of millions of rupees spent on these schemes until now are likely to be wasted.
In March this year, former Provincial Minister for Literacy Raja Rashid Hafeez and PHA Chairman Asif Mehmood inaugurated the rain harvesting project at Rawal Road Park.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 16th, 2022.
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