Islamabad: CDA budget slashed by 20%

[Naveed Yaseen]

Mobarik A. Virk
The annual budget of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), to be announced today (Tuesday), has been slashed from original Rs35 billion to Rs28 billion, sources in the CDA told ‘The News.’

“The budget prepared while the former chairman, Tariq Mahmood Khan, was in office, was based on projected figures/estimates as certain expectations to raise money from different acts, especially through auction of plots, made a sizeable part of that budget,” the sources said.

“However, new Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi who was being briefed about the budget in the CDA Board meetings for the last three days, told the concerned officers that such projected figures/estimates should be left out and it should be based on realistic terms, keeping in view the actual receipts and revenue generations of the authority,” the sources added.

The new chairman along with the Member (FA) Saeed-ur-Rehman is scheduled to announce the CDA budget for the year 2009-10 today at the Convention Centre in the early afternoon. It was learnt that the chairman has advised those engaged in the budget preparations not to get too ambitious and instead be realistic to avoid any disappointments in future.

“The chairman also directed the concerned people to focus more on the development of ‘I’ and ‘G’ series sectors as well as the model villages (towns) and create better civic amenities for the citizens of these sectors and towns where people have generally been feeling deprived for a long time now because the authority has spent too much on beautifying and improving the posh ‘F’ and ‘E’ series sectors over the past almost a decade,” the sources said.

It was learnt that the CDA is not imposing any new taxes or enhancing the existing ones. “The new budget is aimed at improving the existing facilities through the available resources. While maintenance of the city would certainly remain the focus, the chairman has particularly told to make enough allocation for up-keep of existing and creation of new facilities in the sectors of the federal capital that have remained neglected in the past,” the sources said.

They said that the federal government shared in CDA’s budget that stands at Rs3,800 million out of which a major chunk will be spent on Public Sector Development Projects (PSDP) including roads, special projects, environment, water supply and sewerage system. “Out of Rs3,800 million, allocated under PSDP, Rs1,250 million would be spent on the maintenance of government buildings including the government residences as well as the offices. From the Rs 2,540 million allocated for PSDPs, a major portion would be allocated for the ongoing mega projects like Zero Point interchange as well as the upcoming projects of the Kashmir Expressway, the Margalla Avenue linking Sector D-12 directly with the GT Road at Nicholson Monument,” the sources said. “Other top priorities in the PSDP allocations would be water supply, sewerage system and improvement of environment,” the sources added.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=185745