I-16 development Senate body grills officials

[Salman]

ISLAMABAD, Feb 11: A Senate committee on Monday grilled officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) for their failure to complete development work at sector I-16.

The sector’s development was started in 2000 but it still remains incomplete.

During a meeting of the committee on government assurances with Senator Saeed Ghani in the chair, Senator Kulsoom Parveen said even after 13 years the civic agency could not complete the development work.

She said the CDA officials were not coming up with facts and “lying to the committee members about the development of the sector.” There is nothing concrete on the ground, she added.

CDA’s member estate Shaista Suhail, however, insisted that electricity work in the sector was 99 per cent complete. She said the grid station had already been established with the installation of around 44 transformers.

She said the authority was facing some issues from the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline. “The SNGPL could not lay the pipelines on time so the sector is still without gas supply,” said Ms Suhail.

The committee gave a week’s time to both the CDA and SNGPL to complete their work and submit a report to the committee in its next meeting.

Failure of Park Enclave

Senator Kulsoom also said Park Enclave project had deliberately been derailed by officials of the CDA. Park Enclave housing society was inaugurated in July 2011 followed a few days later by Bahria Town Enclave.

However, 70 per cent of the development work in Bahria Enclave was completed by 2012 while Park Enclave has not seen any major construction activity, she added.