CDA finally takes possession of Chatta Bakhtawar land

‘Gainful award’ for BUP by civic body convinced landowners to leave

ISLAMABAD: Nearly 10 months after ground for the project had been broken by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Monday finally managed to acquire possession of 900 kanals of land in Chatta Bakhtawar for the King Hamad University of Nursing and Allied Medical University in the capital.

Monday’s announcement thus completes the acquisition process which took the civic body 36 years.

“The CDA Land Directorate has been successful in taking possession of 900 kanals of the land in Chatta Bakhtawar and adjoining areas today,” CDA Public Relation (PR) Deputy Director Malik Saleem Akhter confirmed to The Express Tribune.

Another CDA official privy to the development told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that the acquisition was the outcome of the “gainful award announced by CDA against built-up properties for affectees last Friday.”

CDA had first acquired 900 kanals of land in Chatta Bakhtawar and adjoining mouzas in 1981. But the authority had been unable to obtain possession of the land despite making paying locals the value of the land. However, the affectees went to court against CDA’s attempts to take possession of the land, claiming that their claims for built-up properties on the land had not been fulfilled.

Owing to litigation, the land acquisition process suspended for a long time. The courts finally settled the matter in 2002 but the CDA failed to obtain possession of the land.

However, Akhter said that of this land, the civic body had allocated 237 kanals of land for constructing the King Hamad University in 2015 in Chatta Bakhtawar and Mouja village across Park Road and issued allotment letter to the financiers the Government of Bahrain. The authority planned to develop the remaining land.

Moreover, developed plots would be allotted to affectees in the same area.

However, the land affectees again went to court after the CDA announced the project.

Last Friday CDA Land Directorate had announced an award for land affectees against their built-up properties.

”When we first visited the site, there were around 100 built-up properties on the proposed site for the university,” a CDA Planning Directorate official told The Express Tribune.

Another official said that when the government announced compensatory payments for BUP, construction activities in the Dhoke 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. However, the CDA awarded BUP claims against 782 properties on Friday.

“After such a gainful award announced by CDA, landowners will not hesitate to handover the possession of land to authority,” a CDA internal source privy to the matter told The Express Tribune.

Attempts were made to contact the CDA Member Land, but he did not respond.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2017.