'Poorly' organised Murree tehsils irk residents

Sources say Murree and Kotli Sattian tehsils operate without limits, offices & field staff

RAWALPINDI:

Two tehsils of the Murree district, created two years ago to promote terrorism, are still working without proper territorial limits, infrastructure and operations, seeking the authorities' immediate attention.

The Murree district and its mother district Rawalpindi have remained indecisive over executing 'independent' operations even after two years, leaving the residents of new tehsils in a fix.

Two years ago, the new Murree was divided into Murree and Kotli Sattian tehsils and Rawalpindi lost both of them. However, two new tehsils were immediately created in Rawalpindi district by dividing Potohar Town into City tehsil and Saddar tehsil to maintain the figure of seven of the old tehsils of the district. The other five tehsils are Rawalpindi City, Rawalpindi Saddar, Kallar Syedan, Kahota, Gujjar Khan and Taxila.

The newly created tehsils of the Rawalpindi district have been abandoned, both politically and administratively, since their creation as permanent Tehsildar, Naib Tehsildar and their offices besides the Assistant Commissioners (ACs) aren't yet appointed.

New tehsils lack their secretariats and their two-room offices operate in Old Tehsil Office in Rawalpindi. The offices have no magistrates.

The negligence on the part of the Deputy Commissioner (DC)'s office can be well judged from the fact that the official website and social media accounts have no mention of new tehsils, working for the last years under the official records.

Authorities are unable to declare the territorial limits of both tehsils, causing much inconvenience to the residents who have to deal with dozens of daily issues including property registries, stamp papers, and others. The applicants are referred to a small corner room to solve their problems after a week.

It was formally announced to establish a tehsil complex at the time of the establishment of the two new tehsils. The complex was later built in the tehsil office but it failed to cater to the working needs of new tehsils.

The population of the Rawalpindi district was earlier around 61.18 million and the Murree district 790,632 people, but after the bifurcation of Murree, the population of the Rawalpindi district is estimated at around 53.28m.