ISLAMABAD: A large number of off road vehicles have turned Directorate of Emergency and Disaster Management (EDM) of CDA into extinguisher of hopes of citizens rather than extinguisher of fire. As many as 17 out of total 35 vehicles of this directorate are out of order for want of funds amounting to Rs 0.3 million and on the other hand chairman CDA Maroof Afzal says that EDM directorate will not only be upgraded further for providing fire service of international standard to Islamabad. Chairman CDA also claimed that more modern training courses will be conducted to enhance professional expertise of the staff so that CDA fire-fighters could play effective role in overcoming any emergency situation in Islamabad and other cities of the country. The information and documents available with Daily Times revealed that 17 vehicles of the EDM Directorate remained dysfunctional and unresponsive to meet any untoward situation on Fire-Fighters Day on May, 4 due to non repairing the nominal faults demanding a sum of Rs 0.3 million. It is matter of grave concern that CDA Chairman is talking of more training courses for staff members and equipping the directorate with state of the art technology while on the other hand 7 vehicles are not operative due to batteries, 5 for faulty tyres and 5 for minor faults. These 35 vehicles were purchased at the cost of Rs 666 million. Chairman CDA said at the function that Directorate of EDM is still equipped with trained staff and state of the art fire-fighting apparatus and it has proved its skill and professionalism not only in the emergency situation in the country but also in other countries of the world. When contacted Deputy Director Amad ud Din of EDM Directorate told Daily Times that fire-fighting vehicles have gone off road due to lack of funds and the management has been contacted in this respect. Tahir Shahbaz Nadeem Director EDM said that 17 vehicles of this directorate were off road on the occasion of fire fighters day but they have not developed any major fault. Some vehicles are off road due to non replacement of batteries and some due to defective tyres. However, these vehicles start when they are pushed. Funds amounting to Rs 0.3 million have been got approved from Chairman CDA and proposal has been put forth before him for creating emergency fund in order to deal with any emergency situation. Out of this fund off road vehicles will be got repaired timely but this proposal has not been approved so far.