Daily Times

The district administration informed the coordination committee that Rs 4 billion more are required to make the under construction Urology Hospital functional.

Talking exclusively to Daily Times, after the district coordination committee meeting, Provincial Minister for Literacy & Non Formal Basic Education Raja Rashid Hafeez revealed that during the meeting, the officials informed that 78 percent development work on the Rawalpindi Institute of Urology & Kidney has been completed. Rs 4 billion more will be required to make the hospital functional. While the budget allocated for this project in current financial year is only a few crore rupees,” he added.

Earlier, the district coordination committee’s meeting was held at the deputy commission office. Provincial Minister Raja Rashid Hafeez, Members of Provincial Assembly Seemabia Tahir, Abida Raja, Ejaz Khan, Latasab Satti, Zafar Abbasi, Rashid Ahmed, Chaudhry Sajid Mahmood, Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi, Chaudhry Adnan, Additional Deputy Commissioner Waqas, Development Deputy Director Saima Ghafoor and other relevant government officials attended the meeting.

Briefing the committee members, Saima Ghafoor said that Rs 29 billion are allotted in the current budget for the 173 development projects of Rawalpindi. Only 14 development schemes have been completed while 134 projects are in progress.

Eighty-two schemes of highways, 37 of building department, nine of Water & Sanitation Authority, 10 of local government, five of Rawalpindi Development Authority, one of Parks & Horticultural Authority, 26 of public health and three schemes of health department are yet to be completed.

During the meeting, on the indication of MPA from Gujjar Khan, Deputy Commissioner Dr Umar Jehangir asked Development deputy director to furnish a comprehensive report about the under construction Gujjar Khan Beval Road, Habib Sui Chamman and Habib Chowk to Islam Pura Road.

Raja Rashid Hafeez showed serious concerns on the insufficient budget allocation for the ongoing development projects and said the previous government has started many projects only for political point scoring without having financial resources.

Published in Daily Times, September 16^th 2018.