Delayed payment: Capital’s ‘model jail’ project hits a snag

Payment of compensation to 50 per cent landowners yet to be made.

ISLAMABAD:

The capital city’s ‘model jail’ project hits a snag due to delay in payment of land compensation, it has been learnt.

The ground-breaking ceremony of the jail, which is scheduled to be held on September 30, seems unlikely to take place as the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is yet to pay the compensation to half of the affected people from whom the land had been acquired, sources in the CDA told The Express Tribune.

The sources said that the CDA had acquired 90 acres for the proposed jail in Sector H-16.

In 2008, the government approved a plan to construct a prison in the capital. The sources said that the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration, in April 2012, had paid Rs720 million to the CDA to purchase the land.

However, in the first week of September, the ICT administration learnt that the CDA did not pay compensation to the 50 per cent affected people. This is despite that fact that the CDA had got full amount from the ICT administration, the sources said.

“The CDA was supposed to get the land cleared since money had been released to them, however, the civic authority officials kept us in the dark which shows total negligence and inefficiency on their part,” said an ICT official requesting anonymity.

According to the sources, director development and finance ICT and assistant commissioner Islamabad (Saddar), during a recent visit to the proposed site, learnt from the area people (affected ones) that 50 per cent residents have yet been paid compensation by the CDA. “It would be a risk to launch the ground breaking ceremony on September 30, as the affected people can create a law and order situation, unless they are compensated,” the sources said.

The sources said that on September 11, ICT Chief Commissioner Jawad Paul wrote a letter to the CDA chairman cautioning him that a serious law and order situation may arise on the occasion of the groundbreaking ceremony due to non-payment of compensation, urging the civic authority to pay compensation to avoid any untoward situation.

The sources said that the CDA has not yet responded to the administration. “We have requested the CDA to look into the matter promptly but we are yet to get reply from them. “Under the current condition, it is not possible to hold the ceremony to kick-start the project,” the sources said.

According to the master plan of the jail, which will cost approximately Rs1.2 billion and for which the interior ministry released Rs13 million in August this year, the facility will have a 22-bed hospital, school for boys and girls of the jail staff, a mosque, a library, an auditorium, segregated cells, and separate barracks for women and juveniles. The jail will have the capacity to house almost 40,000 inmates.

Currently, Adiala Jail is housing Islamabad’s share of prisoners as the capital has no jail. The ICT administration also wants its own jail as it was increasingly becoming risky for the police to transport suspects from cells in the capital to and from Rawalpindi after court hearings. At present, about 1500 prisoners from the Islamabad district are being detained in the Adiala Jail and some other places of the country, as the capital has no prison.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2013.