Whose office is it anyway?: DC staff moves in to Rescue 1122 HQ

Rescue service claims district admin staffers occupying their under construction office.

PESHAWAR:

A row over an under construction building emerged on Saturday morning between the district administration and Rescue 1122. The building in question, situated on Sher Shah Suri Road, is meant to serve as the provincial headquarters of the rescue service.

Construction was approved in 2011 by the then Awami National Party (ANP) government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), but Rescue 1122 officials claim the deputy commissioner’s (DC) staff forcibly occupied the building on Saturday morning. According to Rescue 1122 spokesman Bilal Ahmad Faizi, the DC office’s staff began taking control of the building early morning by shifting their equipment to the premises at 3am and locking the main gate to prevent rescue officials from entering.

“The workers of DC office removed our equipment and began placing theirs instead,” said Faizi, adding they intended to take over the building.

“At present, Rescue 1122 is operating out of a rented building near Haji Camp Bus Stop and we had hoped to move to the new office after its construction as that would help us centralise our operations in K-P,” said Faizi.



He said the DC office had filed a written request in June 2013 to the chief secretary to be allocated space in the new building, however, the request had remained unanswered.

The spokesman further said the chief secretary, home secretary, DC and Rescue 1122 director general visited the site on Friday and another summary was forwarded to the chief secretary and chief minister (CM) regarding allocating space in the building to the DC office. “However, the summary has not been approved and the DC office staffers have started setting up offices in our building,” stated Faizi.

He further informed that all financial requirements for the structure, including procurement of land and cost of construction, were covered from Rescue 1122 department’s own funds.

He added Rs150 million had been spent on the construction so far, while the Communication and Works department had not yet cleared it for occupation because work was still under way. However, the DC staff has already started shifting to the building.

On the other hand, an official at the DC office, Feroz Shah, acknowledged that a summary had been sent to the CM in June 2013, but refused to comment any further. Shah added they would clarify their position by Monday.

Other officials of the DC office could not be reached for comment despite several attempts. Aside from establishing a provincial headquarters, the rescue service also has plans to construct centres in various cities of K-P.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2014.