Planned encroachment: For grid station in F-9 park, CDA tries to circumvent law

Board approves 10-kanal plot to provide electricity to commercial complexes.

ISLAMABAD:

City managers like to take liberties with the  law, that much is evident from their latest plan to set up a grid station in the capital’s most popular park.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to cordon off a 10-kanal plot Fatima Jinnah Park for a grid station to service commercial complexes. The original location earmarked for the utility was a chunk of uneven land along the bank of a seasonal nullah passing through a corner of the park, but it was declared unusable in favour of another plot, around 400 feet further into the park.

The CDA board also approved the new plot during a meeting held on November 1. The grid station is expected to have a capacity of 25 megawatts, primarily to cope with the future demand for electricity generated by Centaurus, some 16 megawatts, and for new buildings which will come up once Blue Area expands.

“The Supreme Court in the F-9 Park case and a number of other cases proscribed the use of land earmarked for a park for commercial purposes, not for the establishment of utility services,” a senior official of the planning wing naively remarked when he was asked about the violation of land use and court verdicts on the issue.

The CDA is bound under an agreement with Pak-Gulf Construction, the builders of Centaurus complex, to establish at its own cost a grid station to ensure unhindered provision of electricity to the multi-storey building. The construction firm had stopped payment for the land after CDA failed to establish the facility.

“In 2011, the CDA came up with the idea of setting up a grid station along the nullah in F-9 Park but in October the same year, it was challenged in the Supreme Court,” said a CDA  official. The petitioner had contended that a grid station would harm the park’s environment and endanger the lives of visitors. The apex court had accepted the petition and a reply was sought from the CDA, but the case is still pending in the court of law.

Environmentalist Dr Jawad Chishti said the grid station would definitely harm the environment of the park. Citing the verdict in the famous Shehla Zia case in which the establishment of a grid station within a residential area was challenged, he said, the court had barred Wapda from establishing a station in public movement areas in 1994.

He said electromagnetic radiation emitted from the installations could harm people. Once the grid station is set up, a significant area of the park would become inaccessible to the public and that would be tantamount to a violation of people’s fundamental right.

Neither the CDA chairman nor the CDA member planning were available for comment. They were conveyed the issue through text message but they did not respond.

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