Rs49.54b set aside for completion of LDA City

Major chunk of money will be spent on land acquisition

LAHORE:

The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has approved a revised budget of Rs49.54 billion for early completion of the infrastructure of the LDA City housing scheme.

The LDA governing body has given a go-ahead to the revised PC-1 of the project in the sixth session of the body held here on Monday.

Earlier, a PC-1 of Rs33.66 billion was approved for the same works in 2017 but the authority failed to allocate funds for land acquisition. The amount will be used for the construction of roads in Jinnah Sector of LDA City Phase-1.

A major sum of this money will be spent on land acquisition for construction of 200-foot wide Chenab Road, which will directly connect the Jinnah Sector to Ferozepur Road near Lahore Ring Road.

On Prime Minister Imran Khan’s direction, the governing body of the authority has also given approval for the hiring of consultants for the construction of 35,000 residential apartments in LDA City under Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme, a flagship low-cost housing project of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government

The authority has decided to invite technical and financial bids for the construction of residential apartments.

The governing body has also constituted a committee to evaluate consultants’ proposal, which will be convened by the governing body member Engineer Riaz Qureshi.

LDA Chief Engineer Habibul Haq Randhawa has been nominated as co-convener of the committee which will comprise of WASA managing director, TEPA chief engineer and experts from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore.

The authority will also conduct a pre-bidding conference for interested engineering consultancies.

The governing body has decided to give the responsibility of infrastructure development and construction of housing apartments to Engineering Wing of the authority.

Meeting participants were informed about the financial model proposed by financial consultant, Aslam Malik and Company.

A proposal to arrange bridge financing facility for citizens interested to buy apartments under the Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme.

The governing body also approved negotiations with the management of the Chiniot Housing Society for the acquisition of land in LDA Avenue 1. The said society has around 1,555 kanals of land in LDA Avenue 1.

The authority has decided to offer developed plots equivalent to 30% of the land. If negotiations succeed, the authority would be able to give procession of 613 plots to applicants waiting for the past 17 years.

The governing body has also accepted an offer made by an influential citizen to construct two mosques in LDA Avenue 1 and Jubilee Town from his own pocket.

After completion of construction, the authority would take administrative control of the mosque and no sect would have any connection with the mosque.

The governing body also approved the LDA Building and Zoning Regulations, 2020 to promote business and commercial activities in all four districts of the Lahore Division.

These regulations talk about the zoning of different industrial, commercial, residential for new businesses. The authority has laid down a complete plan for establishing a new business in district Lahore, Kasur, Sheikhupura and Nankana Sahib such as the size of the plot, width of the road and other infrastructure requirements for different zones.

LDA Vice Chairman S M Imran chaired the meeting which was briefed by the LDA Director General Ahmad Aziz Tarrar.

MPAs Sadia Sohail Rana, Umar Aftab, Muhammad Atif, Lahore Division Commissioner and other senior officials attended the meeting.

Following the court decision to hand over the developed plots to the LDA City file owners on a timely basis, the project is under the strict watch of the government and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

All agencies concerned are closely monitoring the pace of development works. The authority has acquired 90% of the land for the project.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2020.