CDA awards over 700 ‘built-up’ property cases in Islamabad

Officials say false cases included, mayor notes new formula allowed more awardees

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to wrap up land acquisition for the King Hamad University of Nursing and Allied Medical Sciences in the capital, the Land and Rehabilitation Directorate of CDA on Friday announced 700 awards for built-up properties in Islamabad.

Officials at the Capital Development Authority (CDA) told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that most of the awards – issued to compensate landowners for the money they had spent on construction - had been finalised against bogus claims for built-up properties (BUPs) in the area, allegedly under pressure from two political bigwigs.

The decision to set up the state-of-the-art university in the capital was the result of deliberations between former prime minister Nawaz and Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa.

After the land issue arose, the Ministry of National Health Services and Regulation had at the time proposed to offer land near the National Institute of Health (NIH) to build the varsity.

The CDA had identified 237 kanals of land in Chatta Bakhtawar and Mouja village across Park Road for the nursing university. The civic body even issued allotment letters to the financiers of the varsity – the Bahrain government– in 2015 but it failed to take possession of the land owing to a dispute over the built-up property. The situation became dire after former prime minister Nawaz Sharif performed the groundbreaking ceremony of Pakistan’s first nursing university in January 2017.

Five months after the project had been inaugurated, the civic body announced plans to rehabilitate people who had not been properly compensated for their built-up properties and to secure possession of land meant for the varsity.

According to CDA’s land acquisition and rehabilitation policy, every BUP owner who has over 300 square foot of covered area is eligible to receive compensation in the form of a single five marla plot. The policy would see the affectees receive alternate plots in Maragalla Town worth billions.

“The CDA had acquired this land back in 1981, but on the ground, the authority was unable to obtain possession,” a CDA official told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity.

With the government willing to do whatever it took to secure possession of the land, officials told The Express Tribune that some in the CDA’s Land and Rehabilitation Directorate allegedly decided to grease their palms from people who wanted to include their bogus claims for built-up property, allegedly under pressure from two political bigwigs of the twin cities.

“When we [first] visited the site, there were around 100 built-up properties on the proposed [university] site,” a CDA Planning Directorate official said.

However, another official said that since the government announced compensatory payments for BUP, construction activities in the Dhok Azam and its adjoining areas increased exponentially. So much so, that BUP went up from 137 houses recorded in a physical survey from around a year ago to 826 compensation claims which the CDA received.

The mayor, meanwhile, said he had little knowledge about the allegations.

“I do not have much information about the details of the awards announced by the Land and Rehabilitation Directorate on Friday evening,” Islamabad Mayor and CDA Chairman Sheikh Anser Aziz told The Express Tribune. He, however, confirmed that over 700 awards had been announced.

“The number of awards was increased due to CDA land acquisition and rehabilitation formula under which one room with a covered area of one and a quarter Marla is considered to be a single unit,” Mayor Aziz said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2017.