CDA delays development of Sector I-15

[Salman]

Despite the passage of seven years, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has yet to develop Sector I-15 for which people have paid millions of rupees to the civic body. The CDA had launched Sector I-15 in 2005 for the provision of housing facility to low income groups but the dream of low income earning people to have a house in the federal capital would not be fulfilled because of growing corruption and mismanagement in the authority.

The inordinate delay in the development of Sector I-15 would further aggravate the housing shortage in the capital city as Islamabad is, currently, facing shortage of 40,000 residential units, an official source said. He also said that the finance directorate of CDA has spent most of the revenue generated from selling of plots in Sector I-15 on other projects to please government functionaries due to which CDA was unable to start the much-awaited development of Sector I-15.

Source said that Sector I-15 has a total of 13,500 housing units on 5,500 plots of five to seven marlas and 8,000 flats. CDA had fixed 54 percent quota for general public, 20 percent for affected people of Islamabad, 10 percent for non-commissioned officers (NCOs), 10 percent for employees of federal government from basic scale 1-15, five percent for CDA employees, and one percent for working journalists of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

He said that over 3,350 allottees of flats have retrieved their payment due to delay in the uplift work in the sector. He said that the CDA had awarded the contract of development work of the Sector I-15 to a construction company owned by the brother of a former federal minister during Musharraf's tenure Naseer Khan at a cost Rs 1.164 billion in 2006. The influential contractor failed to execute the project and his contract was consequently terminated by the CDA in April 2007.

The official said that later the CDA's Planning Wing appointed consultants, who designed the construction of a main road and bridge linking Sector I-15 with I-16. After seeking approval from the government, the CDA called for competitive bidding from international firms for the development of the sector.

In September 2009, five firms were shortlisted, of which only one China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation had submitted a bid, amounting to US $785.5 million for the project. The proposal was turned down because the rate was too high. "Since its establishment in 1960s, the CDA could only develop 27 sectors for residential and commercial purposes. As per the Master Plan of Islamabad, as many as 60 sectors have been designed over an area of 55,000 acres", he added.