Signal-free Expressway: Civic agency allows housing schemes to build underpasses

Questions persist as there is no provision for arrangement in CDA Ordinance

ISLAMABAD:

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is pursuing public-private partnership for road infrastructure in the capital without considering the possible legal fallout of the move.

The civic authority has allowed housing societies along the Islamabad Expressway to undertake construction of underpasses at their entrances as part of the signal-free corridor from Zero Point to Rawat.

Currently, Gulberg Islamabad is undertaking construction of an underpass at its entrance at the Expressway.

While the CDA maintains that the move would be mutually beneficial for the civic agency and the housing schemes, doubts persist as there is no provision in the CDA Ordinance to allow this.

Previously, a similar arrangement with another property developer in Zone-IV landed CDA in trouble after the National Accountability Bureau launched investigation into the deal, saying there was no provision for it in the CDA Ordinance. The issue was also taken up by standing committees of the National Assembly and the Senate.

The permission of construction of interchanges and underpasses to housing societies is only limited to phase-III of the signal-free corridor, from Koral Chowk to Rawat.

“It will benefit both, the CDA and the housing schemes. The CDA will get an interchange or an underpass without spending a penny while housing societies will get hassle-free entry to their respective colonies from Expressway,” said a senior CDA official. He said the arrangement would also facilitate the traffic.

Contacted, CDA spokesperson Ramzan Sajid said the civic agency’s board had decided to grant permission to the societies. He said the CDA had also consulted legal experts on the issue.

He said housing societies had been bound get designs of their underpass vetted and approved by the CDA engineering wing and that the authority would also supervise the construction.

He said the housing societies would hand over the infrastructure to CDA after completion of the projects. The land belongs to the CDA, he said.

Sajid said housing societies would benefit from the signal-free corridor and there was no harm if they were contributing to it voluntarily.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th,  2016.