Encroachment safeguards: CDA to fence Kuri Model Village

Official says civic authority looking to revive project

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to protect it from encroachers and to firmly demarcate its boundaries, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to erect a fence around the Kuri Model Village.

“Today, we have decided to fence the CDA land in Kuri area,” CDA Member Planning Asab Mehboob Kiyani told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

He said that that authority had been holding meetings to devise a mechanism to revive the stalled Kuri Model Village project.

The project had been first conceived in the mid-1960s, but development work on it is yet to begin.



Last year, former CDA chairman and incumbent Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC) Mayor Sheik Anser Aziz had held successive consultations to revive development work in the stalled sectors, especially in areas where they were faced with thousands of allegedly fake built-up property claims.

Sources said an initial survey had found that there were around 1,100 occupants of the land, but when the CDA began the process to take possession of the acquired land in 2011, the number had increased to 7,096. A probe by the Federal Investigation Agency in 2013, though, only cleared 3,422 landholders.

In connivance with property dealers, CDA officials had allegedly purchased plot files from affected people at nominal prices. The affected people were entitled to alternate plots.

Then, CDA officials, through their agents, got plots of their choosing and then sold the plots on the open market – earning millions.

The model village is spread over 3,200 acres in the Kurri, Majohan and Rehara mauzas in Zone IV of the capital, equal to around four residential sectors of the capital. It was designed to provide hundreds of thousands of housing units.

After paying compensation and the built-up property claims, the CDA will still retain around 2,000 acres of land, worth billions of rupees, a planning wing official said.

In 2014-15, the CDA Board decided to re-plan the project. But by that time, the land for the project found itself surrounded by several housing projects, including those launched by the CDA and by private companies.



Sources claim that some private housing societies have started encroaching on CDA land.

“The position [of encroachment] would be ascertained when development starts on the ground,” Kiyani said.

Considering the fact that the project is four times the size of a regular CDA sector — which spans around 750 acres, its development was a daunting task. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2018.