CDA expected to allocate big chunk for Margalla Highway project

[Salman]

CDA expected to allocate big chunk for Margalla Highway project

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is expected to allocate Rs1 billion for the under-construction Margalla Highway project in its annual budget for 2014-15.
It is feared, however, that the alignment plan of the signal-free road may face the same fate as the Kashmir Highway project, where the CDA had to change its original alignment after a sensitive agency refused to vacate encroached land falling within the proposed route.
The 32-kilometre-long Margalla Highway will connect the Motorway with the Murree Expressway near Kot Hathyal village, some three kilometres from Bhara Kahu.
A 14.5-kilometre portion of the proposed road, passing through the north-east edge of E-series sectors, an area which also house military installations, a cause of “concern” for the army and a sensitive agency.
Sources privy to the development said that the issue was taken up with representatives of the armed forces in the past, but they reportedly refused to allow the CDA to go ahead with the original plan.
The road project is, however, in line with the Islamabad Master Plan.
After resistance from the armed forces, the CDA put construction on the “disputed” portion of the road on the backburner, the sources said.
CDA Engineering Member Shahid Sohail said the civic agency is currently focusing on two portions of the road — a section from GT Road to Sector D-12, and the other from Constitution Avenue to Kot Hathiyal.
“The CDA is not presently focusing on the disputed portion passing behind the E-series sectors,” Sohail said.
The segment from GT Road to Sector D-12 is 8.5 kilometres, while the Constitution Avenue to Kot Hathyal patch is it is nine kilometres.
Sohail claimed that the CDA had yet to take up the issue of construction around the E-series of sectors with the armed forces.
“Such things are only discussed at the highest level,” he said, without specifying who would take up the issue with the military and when.
According to the master plan, the 14.5-kilometre road passes behind sectors E-7, E-8, E-9, E-10 and E-11. Navel Headquarters is located in Sector E-8 and PAF headquarters is in Sector E-9, while Sector E-10 has been reserved for the construction of Pakistan Army’s new general headquarters. The area also houses some other sensitive buildings and sporting facilities under military control.
These included Margalla Greens Golf Club behind Sector E-8 and the National Defence University (NDU) in Sector E-9. Incidentally, NDU has also erected some illegal structures which are within the highway’s alignment and would need to be razed, said an engineering wing official while asking not to be named. The official said illegal construction by International Islamic University Islamabad at its Faisal Mosque campus also fall within the road alignment.
Unable to deal with the issues, the CDA’s planning wing was also mulling over alternative alignment plans, which involve utilisation of Khayaban-e-Iqbal, commonly known as Margalla Road, which passes in front of the E-series of sectors.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2014.