Developmental direction: Capital’s master plan being revised, Awan

PM’s aide assures businessmen of resolving their issues

ISLAMABAD: The capital’s business community on Saturday was provided assurances that their issues with the city’s top civic body will be resolved on priority.

These assurances were provided on Saturday by Ali Nawaz Awan, a former local government representative of the capital and now MNA from NA-53 apart from serving as the Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) Affairs.

In a meeting with a delegation from the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Awan said that the capital’s business community was playing an important role in the development of the economy and that steps would be taken to address their issues related to the CDA.

Awan said that the issue of trade-change was an important one for the city’s business community and that he would work with the CDA to make this process easier so that businessmen could change trade as per current needs of the business.

He further said the process of lease renewals for commercial plots will also be simplified to facilitate traders and industrialists.

Awan noted that they were revisiting the nearly 60-year-old master plan of the city to improve it so that it conforms with current needs.

The PM’s aide also assured to improve the performance of the civic body by introducing automation. The one-window facility of the CDA will be further improved as well to provide better services to the business community and citizens.

He assured that all highlighted issues of the business community would be addressed to facilitate them.

Earlier, ICCI’s Senior Vice President Rafat Farid and Vice President Iftikhar Anwar Sethi and other members of the delegation highlighted the various issues which the city’s business community were facing and required urgent attention from the CDA to redress.

They said that CDA had assured them of updating the building by-laws in the city to meet the current needs of businesses. However, they complained that this process had stalled. They urged that the CDA should expedite that process.

The delegation further that CDA should revise the annual ground rent charged for industrial plots and to make it more affordable.

CDA’s lease renewal process, the businessmen said, was quite complicated which needs to be streamlined along with a revision in its rates.

The businessmen said that CDA had agreed, in principle, to allow the construction of an additional floors for buildings in the markets. However, the civic authority was now charging very high rates for granting permission which made the entire effort unfeasible. They emphasised that the CDA should reduce the charges for building additional floors.

In the industrial estates of the federal capital, the businessmen complained that no more space was available to set up new factories.  

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2018.