Contract to complete Park Enclave awarded

Authority claims contract given at nearly two-thirds of the estimated cost

ISLAMABAD: The apex civic authority of the federal capital on Thursday announced that it had finally awarded a contract to complete the remaining work on the stalled Park Enclave in the city. The body claimed that it had awarded the contract at 32 per cent lower than what it had originally estimated the project to cost.

This was announced by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in a statement on Thursday. It added that development work on the remaining portion of the enclave is expected to start in the current week.

Development activities in Park Enclave have been stalled for the past four years owing to various issues.

Launched in 2010, citizens had deposited billions of rupees in this project but it could not be completed, while development work had also stopped three years ago. Following directions from the federal government, the CDA has decided to prioritise work in all stalled sectors by city.

The authority on Thursday said that it has cleared all administrative and technical hang-ups which had been hindering the development of Park Enclave, while all legal formalities have been completed.

Tenders for completing the remaining work on the enclave were issued last month and after completing the selection process, the project was awarded to a contractor.

CDA further claimed that the project has been awarded at just 68% of the cost it had initially estimated.

Initial estimates for constructing the enclave was Rs130 million, however, tenders were reported to have been awarded at Rs86 million.

CDA management has directed the contractor to mobilise the necessary machinery so that work can be started without any further delay while the member engineering has been directed to ensure the quality of work apart from regular monitoring.

Illegal structures demolished

As part of the ongoing anti-encroachment drive, the CDA and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration on Thursday conducted operations in different areas of the city and demolished several illegal constructions and encroachments on state land.

During the joint operation, revenue and enforcement staff of ICT and CDA demarcated EME College to Jhangi Stop on the right of way on the Grand Trunk Road. Per the demarcation, several encroachments and illegal constructions including 28 shops, six sheds, two roadside hotels, a service station, three rooms, two stalls, two gates and six boundary walls were demolished.

During another operation in Sector F-10 Markaz, two bathrooms and an illegally constructed store on the third floor of a commercial plaza were demolished.

Similarly, a room, two boundary walls and an auto garage built in violation of building by-laws were also demolished in Street 25 of Sector F-10/1. Moreover, two stalls of scrap dealers and two shops were also demolished in the 100 Quarters slums.

Furthermore, a newly-constructed room, a bathroom and a boundary wall were also demolished in Muhallah Chajjar, Bari Imam.

CDA appointment criteria questioned

A representative body of town planners has called for changing the legal criteria for appointing the civic body’s ‘Members Planning and Design’.

During a meeting of the Institute of Planner Pakistan (IPP), issues pertaining to the opposition expressed by CDA engineers on appointing member planning were discussed.

Executive committee members of the institute deliberated on it and strongly condemned the viewpoint of CDA engineers, terming it as false and misleading which is in contravention of the CDA Ordinance 1960, the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planner (PCATP) Ordinance 1983, CDA’s Conduct of Business Regulations 1985, the Islamabad High Court Judicial Commission and decision of Islamabad High Court in Farrukh Nawaz Bhatti versus federal government.

They added that statutory provisions, court decisions relating to the professional qualification and experience for CDA Board members and functions of the planning wing in CDA Ordinance, 1960, the opposition of CDA engineers towards the criteria for appointing Member Planning is misleading, illogical, unlawful, contrary to the legal provisions and, court decisions.

They further maintained that urban and regional planning field of study is separate from civil engineering and has an entirely different sphere of working.

Civil engineers, the town planners said, who had enjoyed the post of Member Planning and Design, did so during a ‘flaw-riddled system of governance’ and had allegedly played havoc with the implementation of the city’s master plan resulting in the haphazard and ill-planned development of the federal capital. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2019.