Islamabad was a planned capital city built in a wilderness on the outskirts of Rawalpindi. The city was laid out on a Master Plan which after approval at the highest level was adopted as a blue print for allotment/sale of residential and commercial plots. One knew exactly the zoning and conforming use of a plot before buying it. The promised security of the enforcement of the Master Plan provided the assurance of conforming construction and use of each plot how so ever small. People chose the sites for the environment they wanted to live in.
Some time down the line, infringements started by non-conforming use of the residential areas. Some people started commercial activities like guest houses, beauty parlours, galleries, hotels, schools, offices, clubs etc in houses. This became a big money game and as some greedy people started extracting higher rentals from misuse of the residential premises, it became viral and a lot of residential houses became unavailable for residential purposes and it pushed the rents out of reach of the genuine residents. It became a convoluted city built on violations, illegal encroachments and distortions. It destroyed the peace of the city creating myriad problems like traffic congestion in the purely residential areas making the streets dangerous for the residents especially the elderly and the children. It created noise pollution making the life of residents miserable when compared with the environment promised by the Master Plan. Other major difficulties related to the inadequacy of the infrastructure of power, telephone lines, water lines, sewerage lines, etc, as the demand multiplied because of commercial use of residential properties causing serious difficulties for the genuine residents conforming to the zoning and land use by-laws of the Federal Capital Territory.
The national exchequer also started suffering from growing financial losses as the tariffs were being paid for residential consumers but the utilities were being used for commercial purposes and making gainful profits. This gave rise to a lot of complications relating to crime, safe havens for suspicious activities and living arrangements for the undesirable lot, gambling, drug places etc. The city was all but destroyed in spirit and rule of law. There appeared no chance of the impossible to become possible. The monied property mafia became too strong to put a check on this rampant practice. All hopes were lost, peace of mind robbed, crime percolated deep into the residential areas, traffic became monstrous and utilities became overloaded. The concentration of private schools in small residential streets created traffic nightmares. Then came a messiah that showed a silver lining round the dark clouds, the Supreme Court reiterated the judgement of ending the non-conforming use of residential areas. This judgement while gave a hope to the residents to get back the environment that was promised by the Master Plan, appeared too difficult to be implemented because of the all too powerful mafia that would band together against it for their greed. The impossible became possible when the persistence of the Supreme Court provided muscles to the erring administration to undo the practice. It is making a huge difference as one sees the big businesses, powerful offices, schools and commercial centres start to shift to commercial areas where the utilities and infrastructures caters to that kind of use at tariffs that are meant for commercial customers. One takes the hat off to the judges and hopes that they are able to preside over the complete implementation of their judgement. What still remains to be relocated are the vestiges of the last remaining powerful mafia that appears to be connected with the current administration that is continuing to give them more lease of life. Unless the implementation is completely uniform for all without exception and every misuse is undone it would only be a matter of time that it would spring back with vengeance.
One urges the administration to use the due force of law to drive out the lingering misusers and pray to the Supreme Court to order implementation reports to finally move the greedy and errant powerful to conform to the 55 years old sacrosanct Master Plan. Some big offices on the main boulevards have shifted the cars of their staff from front to streets behind and continue to operate despite the ban. It will take the last push to shift them also.
There are also remnants of the security gates on roads and corners that are no more in current use but still continue to remain physical blemishes of the power symbols. The administration has been loathe in not dismantling these unused gates and it is hoped that they would not wait for directions from the highest court on this issue also!
There is no doubt that Master Plan might not have catered to a larger population in terms of schools but the issue needs to be taken by the horns for a permanent solution without making the life of all residents miserable. It may also be seen that most of private schools are business ventures and need to be located in areas earmarked or cut out for this purpose. Besides the private schools set up in individual houses lack the critically needed environment of free spaces and sporting facilities which in essence are as important as the halls of study. Thanks to the Supreme Court, Islamabad might become the dream city the Master Plan had promised.
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