RAWALPINDI: With local government elections not in sight anytime in near future, the district bureaucracy has turned the district council`s assembly hall into citizen facilitation centre.

The building was constructed at a cost of worth Rs65 million having assembly hall and offices of the local government under one roof.

However, the CDGR handed over the building to Punjab information technology department for the establishment of the facilitation centre and command and control room.

Two former assemblies of the district in 2001 and 2005, arranged its meetings in private hotels and Liaquat Memorial Hall.

However, on October 14, 2009, the district assembly under the leadership of then City District Nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas approved the project to construct the building for city district offices and assembly hall.

A senior CDGR official told Dawn that the CDGR complex project was approved in the last session of District Council on October 14, 2009.

`Initially, the cost of the project was Rs7 million but later it increased to Rs39 million in 2010, and finally the CDGR approved the project and started the work in 2012 at a cost of Rs65 million,` he said. A Reporter