FIA has already submitted findings; authority will only entertain ‘genuine’ claimants. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
After a lapse of four years, the CDA made a little headway in the development of the stalled Kuri Model Village project on Thursday.
The board, which met at CDA headquarters, principally-approved issuance of revalidated allotment letters for residential plots to claimants who were termed “genuine” by the Federal Investigation Agency after its probe into false claimants.
The board also directed that the PC-I for the Kuri Model Village project be presented in the board meeting for formal approval.
The Kuri village scam hit the CDA in 2010 when the authority tried to develop a model village along Park Road after paying compensation to affected people of two villages — Kuri and Rehara.
The authority acknowledged a total of 7,096 claimants as affected people in the two villages and started issuing plots allotment letters to them.
Under CDA rules, CDA project-affected people are paid compensation in the form of residential plots against their properties.
The CDA announced four awards for land acquisition in both the villages — 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1971 — but each time it failed to implement them.
The last award was announced in August 2010.
At the time of first award in 1966, there were only 940 houses in Kuri and 131 in Rehara, but the one announced in 2010 put the number of affected people at 7,096, an increase that astonished many.
Relying on the results of 2010 award list, the CDA issued a total of 3,976 allotment letters in the names of the affected people the same year.
But after it unearthed that many fake claimants were included in the award list, then-chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi declared all the allotments invalid on December 27, 2010 and ordered an internal inquiry besides suspending nine CDA Estate Wing officials.
Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) also initiated investigations into the scam.
In 2013, the FIA completed its investigations and came up with stunning disclosure that over half of the claimants — 3,674 out of 7,096 — included in the 2010 award list were fake.
The FIA had also submitted its lists of genuine and fake affected persons. The results of investigations were shared with the authority during the chairmanship of Tahir Shahbaz. However, the CDA high-ups had shown their resentment over the findings of investigations, saying some genuine claimants were put on the ‘fakes’ list.
The agency’s investigations had unearthed massive irregularities such as double allotment of plots, missing and incomplete files, and missing and counterfeit documents with forged signatures.
Now, the CDA is once again taking up the stalled project.
“We won’t solely rely on the FIA’s findings while issuing allotment letters. The claimants the FIA cleared will be verified again by the CDA,” said a senior Estate Wing official who asked not to be named.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2014.
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