CDA willing to listen to plea for multiple use of industrial plots

Ahmed offers to invite businessmen of the capital to meetings on the city’s master plan

ISLAMABAD: In what could prove to be a significant victory for the traders and industrialists of the federal capital, the head of the apex civic agency in the federal capital has decided to entertain a proposal to allow multiple trades on a single industrial plot.

This was stated by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Chief Commissioner Aamer Ali Ahmed on Friday as he met with a delegation of businessmen of the city under the umbrella of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI).

During the meeting, ICCI President Ahmed Hassan Moughal laid bare issues plaguing the businessmen and traders of the city.

He reminded Ahmed that the CDA Board had approved a move for automatically extending the 33-year lease of commercial property to 99-years. However, this decision was never implemented. He added that the condition of securing a no-objection certificate (NOC) from CDA’s Building Control Section (BCS) for renewing the lease of commercial plots was a major hurdle and urged that CDA abolish this condition apart from implementing the board’s decision on giving a 99-year-lease.

To this, Ahmed responded that they will try to streamline issues in the lease renewal process for the business community.

Moughal further proposed that to boost industrial and economic activities in the federal capital, the CDA should allow industrialists and traders to operate different trades from an industrial plot.

Ahmed agreed and said that the civic body will consider a proposal on this if put forward by ICCI and facilitate businessmen.

The ICCI president also raised the issue of parking in and around major business centres of the city including Super Market, Blue Area, Sector F-8, F-10 and other business centres of the city.

He suggested that the CDA should build parking plazas in all major markets of the city to help solve the problem.

Ahmed, though, had a different idea, suggesting that commercial centres and markets should have underground car parking. However, he added that the CDA will try to provide car parking in all major markets.

Further, Ahmed said that the CDA was working in collaboration with ICT Traffic Police to streamline the traffic flow in the federal capital. For this purpose, they were considering building overhead bridges and U-turns at the required spots.

Moughal said that on the demand of traders, the CDA Board had allowed the construction of an additional storey for commercial buildings located in markets. However, they complained that the civic body had set prohibitively exorbitant charges for approving these additional storeys. He stressed that the authority revises these high charges.

Further, the ICCI chief raised the issue of missing critical facilities at the Kahuta Industrial Triangle such as roads, footpaths, water supply, sewerage and such. He urged that CDA should focus on developing this key industrial estate of the federal capital.

Ahmed responded by saying that they were in the process of revising the master plan of the federal capital under a federal commission. He offered to invite the ICCI to the meeting to solicit the input of the business community.

Moreover, Ahmed said that he will soon visit the Kahuta Industrial Triangle to personally review issues in the area and the best solutions for it.

He assured that all efforts will be made to resolve the issues faced by the business community.

ICCI Senior Vice President Rafat Farid, Vice President Iftikhar Anwar Sethi, Tariq Sadiq, Mian Akram Farid, Khalid Iqbal Malik, Zafar Bakhtawari, Chaudhry Waheedud Din, Shaban Khalid, Nasir Qureshi, Muzzamil Sabri, Tahir Abbasi, Mehmood Ahmed Warraich, Khalid Chaudhry, Tahir Ayub, Sardar Tahir Mehmood, Muhammad Ali Mirza, Malik Rab Nawaz and others also highlighted various issues of the business community for urgent redress.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2019.