- Corporation to consider budget, fair price shops, rural areas, minority graveyard, detail of income, expenditure
ISLAMABAD: The Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) in its 22nd meeting here today will consider important agendas including PSDP budget 2018-2019, overall status of fair price shops in different sectors, provision of basic amenities and issues of rural areas, provision of dedicated plots for minority graveyard at the H-11 and maintenance of existing graveyards and detail of income and expenditure of the corporation.
All the agendas included in the MCI meeting cover the pressing issues of the residents. The graveyards are fast running out of burial space as two main cemeteries in H-8 and H-11 are filled to the brim and presently have only few hundred graves are left. The situation on graveyards of minorities is far more imperiled as separate cemeteries for various minorities are in shambles.
The capital has separate graveyards for Ahmadiyya community, Bahá’í faith and Jewish. The city also has two Christian graveyards situated in H-9, it is for both Protestants and Catholics. Some land of these graveyards has been encroached upon by the land mafia. Both the graveyards are also running out of space as the Christian population, mainly located in F-6, F-7, and G-7 have only these two cemeteries to bury their dead.
The second most important issue is of water shortage that has gone beyond the capacity of any one civic agency, be it MCI or CDA. The residents of the rural Islamabad too suffer from the lowered water table and dried boring left high and dry at the mercy of tankers since scant water supply coupled with repeatedly attempts at water boreholes left them in limbo.
During a recent interview to Pakistan Today, Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz held back no punches and said that MCI has been at the receiving end of negligence and indifference from the CDA bureaucratic high-ups. The mayor and MCI are all set to bag billions of rupees in next year’s Public Sector Development Programme.
It is pertinent to mention here that with the inception of MCI, the powers of CDA had been bifurcated and enforcement and other directorates have been handed over to the corporation. The starting budget of Rs 9 billion for MCI to run 23 directorates of civic issues was granted, however it took months for it to bag it due to the non-availability of proper service regulation and bank account, they’re used to deposit the revenue generating through the advertisements, birth and death certificates, NOC and other heads.