Islamabad’s revised masterplan put into cold storage by CDA

[Naveed Yaseen]

Muhammad Anis
Islamabad
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) after doing a lot of hard work in preparing revised Master Plan of Islamabad has put it in the cold storage.

The civic body started work on revision of the master plan of federal capital by involving local partners of a UK-based consultants namely ‘MM Pakistan’.

After holding seminars and consulting stakeholders including citizens, planners, businessmen etc the document of revised master plan was given final shape towards end of tenure of the Shaukat Aziz government.

The revised plan was also okayed by an inter-ministerial committee of the federal Cabinet headed by the then Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao and it also comprised housing minister, railways minister and minister for overseas Pakistanis. The committee, however, suggested some changes in the document.

A CDA official said any changes in the original Master Plan of Islamabad requires approval by the federal Cabinet. As per requirement, the CDA management waited for the taking over of new government as it was not mandate of a caretaker government to okay such a plan.

A senior official of CDA when contacted said neither the revised master plan was put in cold storage nor it was a futile exercise done by the authority and its consultant.

However, an official of planning wing said a lot of modifications were required to be done in the revised master plan as the consultant was not able to do desired job.

According to document of revised master plan, the authority had proposed launching of various new sectors particularly for low-income group, Sector H-14 for a park on pattern of F-9 Park, industrial city, education city, mass transit system for Islamabad and various other features.

The revision of master plan of 1960, which was devised by a Greek architecture firm Doxiadis Associates, was carried out keeping in view needs of Islamabad Metropolitan by the year 2030. Since the Greek firm gave Master Plan of Islamabad, there had been many violations of it but it was not implemented in letter and spirit.

However, the construction of 7th and 9th Avenues upcoming 6th, 10th and 11th Avenues are part of 1960 Master Plan.

The same firm now has shown interest in preparing master plan for Zone-IV of Islamabad where CDA owns approximately 20,000 acres of land.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=127015