–Wold Bank-funded Punjab Cities Project launched to revamp delivery of municipal services to citizens
–Project aimed at betterment of system, provision of services, development of human resources
LAHORE: To improve the municipal services delivery in different cities of Punjab, finance the gaps in its infrastructure and strengthen the institutional interventions, “Punjab Cities Project” has been launched by the Punjab Municipal Development Fund Company (PMDFC), under the Punjab Municipal Services Improvement Project (PMSIP).
As per the details, the project has been funded by the World Bank (WB) and would be completed within 5 years at a cost of $200 million. The loan agreement with the WB was signed in June 2018 and the project would now be entering its implementation stage.
The project’s expected results would include performance-based grants and a financial reporting system, human resource management, development and asset management planning, budgeting, financial management and audit, own source revenue (OSR), mobilisation and administration, procurement and contract management, infrastructure investments, accountability, transparency, complaint handling along with the monitoring of services delivery outcomes.
Bahawalnagar, Burewala, Daska, Gojra, Hafizabad, Jaranwala, Jhang, Jhelum, Kamalia, Kamoki, Khanewal, Kot Addu, Muridke, Okara,Vehari and Wazirabad are among the municipal committees selected for the project whereas its components include governance, accountability and planning, sustainable financing for services delivery and investment to enhance it.
According to the details provided by PMDFC, the improvements in municipal services are being sought with a continuous monitoring of interventions like the Performance Management System (PMS), Complaint Tracking System (CTS), Computerised Financial Management System (CFMS) and Town Municipal Administration (TMA) website development.
Sources informed Pakistan Today that there were several issues in the municipal services delivery and TMAs in different areas of the province and they lacked a systemised mechanism to handle the complaints regarding the municipal services such as provision of clean drinking water, usage of open spaces and parks, combating epidemic diseases, street lights provision, solid waste management, sewerage systems and fire-fighting management.
“The local government representatives in TMAs are short of proper training in complaint handling and resolving issues of the locals as they lack proper infrastructure and facilities,” they said.
Speaking of the issues being faced by the public in other cities, PMDFC Managing Director Amir Nazeer said that the company was established to maximise the potential of the cities by supporting the local governments of the province at the TMA level and in order to improve the quality of municipal services delivery.
“The Punjab government established PMDFC with the technical and financial assistance of the WB in 1998 for the improvement of municipal services in the province. I think over the past years it has become a technical arm of the Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) Department.”
He said that the Punjab Cities Project would strengthen the local government to improve the delivery of municipal services to the citizens.
“We aim to work in areas where technical training is needed for the betterment of the system, provision of services and development of human resources. I hope that the project will be a success and have a very positive impact on the government system of delivering municipal services,” Nazeer added.