CDA vs PARC land sale: NARC’s fate still in limbo

Both parties anxiously await PM’s decision on CDA’s summary sent in May.

ISLAMABAD: The fate of National Agriculture Research Centre (NARC) still hangs in the balance as the country’s prime minister has yet to respond to the suggestion of Capital Development Authority (CDA) to convert the site of the research institute into a mega-housing society to generate Rs150 billion.

The summary was sent to the PM secretariat in May this year, but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has kept the issue pending due to the hue and cry raised by the civil society along with lawmakers in the standing committees and both houses of the Parliament.

“We fear that the government would take a decision in favour of the CDA soon after the retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice Jawad S Khawaja next month,” said a senior officer at the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC).

“The government is afraid of the incumbent chief justice; this is why the authorities have neither taken a decision nor rejected the file,” he added.

However, he added that NARC had made all the preparations to approach the court in case the government acts upon the CDA’s suggestion.

Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research has already written a letter to the Prime Minister requesting him to avoid such a situation.

Earlier, the CDA estimated the land’s worth at Rs150 billion and presented a plan for residential plots on 625 acres, commercial plots on 60 acres, 190 acres for open spaces, 50 acres for public buildings and 325 acres for future use.

PARC, on the contrary, in its summary has highlighted its 35 years’ profitable use of the land worth Rs4,184.54 billion in addition to developing a state-of-the-art agriculture research institute within the last 40 years.

Meanwhile, the CDA expressed objections to the construction of colonies for officers and staff of the agricultural centre. Officials at CDA claimed that the land was primarily being used for building a colony.

“Of the total NARC employees, only five percent of officers/scientists and four percent of the support staff is residing at the centre,” they added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2015.

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