RAWALPINDI: The provincial government is establishing Punjab Development Authority (PDA) to implement same policies in all big cities and in this regard it will present a bill in the assembly before Eidul Fitr.
A senior official of the Punjab Housing and Urban Development Department told Dawn that legislation had been completed and sent to the law department for vetting before presenting in the assembly.
He said after passage of the bill, all development authorities of Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala will come under PDA. The status of development authorities will be changed to development agencies.
He said a nominee of the chief minister will be the chairperson of the board of governors of the authority while in big cities vice chairman will lead the board of governors.
Apart from this, he said, work had also been started to merge all the parks and horticulture authorities and the process would be completed after formation of the PDA.
He said THE establishment of PDA would make it easy for the provincial authorities to formulate policies and plans at the central level, while local development agencies would ensure their implementation.
On the other hand, a senior official of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) said that it would be good for the development work as the government would release fundsfor projects.
He said one law for housing societies and building plans would be implemented across the province.
However, he said that it would be difficult for officials of the development authorities as the government would transfer them to other areas after evaluating their performance. He said at present officials were not transferred to other cities.
Moreover, the working of the authorities was likely to improve under the PDA.
He said development authorities in big cities of Punjab are currently working under the Punjab Housing, Urban Development Department and faced problems in getting development works approved and funds released.
