Citizens’ body says CDA indifferent to resolution of their problems
ISLAMABAD
STAFF REPORT
Islamabad Citizen Committee President Latif Ahmed Rana said on Sunday that residents of the federal capital had attached great hopes with the upcoming local body elections for solution of their civic problems.
“Candidates have to shoulder a big responsibility towards the long-standing problems being faced by the citizens,” Rana said in a press statement. He said that the civic problems were deteriorating day by day in the capital while the departments responsible showed very little interest in resolving them.
He said that the state of public security was also not satisfactory, as incidents of day-light robbery and street crime were on the rise and that the local administration and police remained heavily engaged in protocol duties of VVIPs and had very little time to take care of public safety.
Rana said that the citizens committee had approached local administration and CDA many times seeking their help in addressing the residents’ problems, but that there was no positive outcome. He said that the issue had been raised at the level of the prime minister and the Interior Ministry as well without any result. He said that the committee had written to heads of local political parties drawing their attention towards the civic problems, hoping their nominees for local body elections would take up the matter in their election’s manifestos.
He said that illegal ‘katchi abadies’ were popping up in the capital while unauthorized construction within and alongside the residential sectors and illegal use of residential properties in the form of schools, offices, beauty parlors etc was also going on and that it had made life miserable for the local people.
The committee president said that there was also a problem of parking of vehicles on footpaths in residential as well as commercial areas. Failure to develop already allotted sectors after more than 20 years of allotment was also a matter of great concern, he said.
Rana further said that was no maintenance or construction of roads, streets and footpaths. He said that the city also lacked proper street lights and that augmentation of water supply was required on urgent basis. Present requirement of the capital was 180 million gallons per day while the available supply from different sources was 62 million gallons, Rana said, adding that the sewage disposals ran into rain-water nullahs because a permanent system with enough capacity was not in place.
