The 8th October, 2005 earthquakes left Rawalakot totally collapsed in terms of Administrative and Institutional setup, as most of the institutional and Government buildings collapsed or damaged beyond repair. Private buildings however sustained earthquake in better manner as compare to public buildings, the reason obviously being quality of construction. The earthquake gave us a very strong message that the region might be destabilized and that we must prepare ourselves for the future.
Besides reconstruction of buildings there was need to make integrated plans for the city so that city could be given a direction of growth and a pattern that would prepare it in better way in case of its day to day needs and emergencies. In view of this Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) took up the task of master planning of major cities affected by earthquake.
The master plan of Rawalakot was awarded to National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK) in June 2006. Data base serves as foundation for any level plan. Therefore secondary data and reports available with various development agencies and Government Departments were collected. This exercise revealed that the planning team was handicapped in terms of data availability. Therefore the decision of various census surveys was taken. These census surveys included household survey, commercial survey, building inventory survey, institutions survey, infrastructure surveys and tourism surveys. This entire data gathering was done in year of 2006, moreover the time period taken for these surveys long-drawn-out to the period of five months.
At the present, list of priority projects have been screened out of Rawalakot Master Plan and named as five years priority projects. Some of these projects have been designed and tendered by NESPAK, while the remaining one had been awarded to Chinese consultant. |
