Work on neglected sectors to start soon: CDA chief

Month-long timeframe set for assessment and planning, on design and contracts

ISLAMABAD: With a new chief at the helm, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to turn its focus on developing the neglected sectors of the federal capital which has been pending due to a paucity of funds.

In this connection, a team of the civic agency, comprising Engineering Member and the relevant directors led by the CDA Chairman and Islamabad Chief Commissioner Aamer Ali Ahmed visited Sectors I-14, I-15 and I-16.

Sector I-14 suffers from a serious issue of access apart from the provision of services. The roads in the area are in a dilapidated state with utilities hardly available.

Similarly, access to Sector I-16 is also in a poor condition.

The CDA chairman was told that a contract is in place and is pending execution for want of Rs50 million. At this, the chairman immediately directed the finance wing to allocate the required sum and to resolve the issue forthwith.

It was decided that development work will commence this week.

Moreover, the sanitation director has been requested to make temporary arrangements for the disposal of solid waste in these areas until proper arrangements can be made.

Further, instructions were issued to assess the missing services in Sectors I-14 and I-16 under a maintenance programme.

The necessary assessment and planning work should be completed within a month, it was decided.

Meanwhile, Sector I-15 was a budgeted project but no money has been allocated for it thus far.

Moreover, its design has yet to be cleared due to some procedural matters. In this regard as well, instructions have been issued so that the procedural matters are resolved within three weeks.

The process for contracting should also be completed within two to three months, Ahmed directed.

The CDA chairman observed that several thousand people are waiting for the development of these sectors to build their houses in and that it was the duty of the CDA to expedite the process.

These projects will yield considerable revenue to the CDA through the utilisation of commercial areas, Ahmed observed.

It was further observed that the first charge on revenue receipts from these projects should be on funding the expenses of development and only the surplus funds should be used for other expenses by CDA.

Ahmed’s visit of the I sectors comes months after his predecessor Usman Akhtar Bajwa had had a similar survey conducted of all the 17 stalled sectors of the federal capital.

Among the stalled sectors, land for Sector I-14 had been announced way back in 1968-69 along with Sectors I-11 and I-12. But due to different reasons, the sector could not be fully developed over time and still lacks service roads north and east.

In Sector I-15, launched by the CDA in 2005 for the middle and lower-middle income families with 10,289 plots allotted, development work has yet to commence nearly 14 years on even though the civic agency has possession of the land.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2019.