Delay in development of Sector I-15: 2,000 allottees of flats apply for refund

[LRE]

* CDA cancels Rs 1,164 million development work contract awarded to M/S Al Khan
* No new contractor hired so far

By Fazal Sher

ISLAMABAD: Due to delay in development work, 2,000 allottees of flats in sector I-15 have filed applications with Capital Development Authority (CDA) for refund of their money, a senior official of CDA told Daily Times on Wednesday.

The official said CDA had launched this sector in 2006 to meet the residential needs of low-income group in the capital. There are 13,500 housing units in the sector including 5,500 plots of 5-7 marlas and 8,000 flats each measuring up to 1,300 sq feet, he added.

He said at the launching ceremony of the sector, the high officials of CDA had claimed that the development work of the sector would be completed in a year, but so far they had not even initiated this work. This prolonged delay discouraged the allottees of flats and they requested CDA several times to start the development work, he said.

The official said the CDA board instead of initiating the development work decided to refund the money to the allottees of flats. He said so far the authority had refunded money to over 1,000 such applicants who are mostly from low-income group and could not afford such a long delay, he said.

He said after the launching of the sector, the authority had awarded infrastructure development work’s contract worth of Rs 1164.170 million to M/S Al Khan, owned by brother of former federal minister for health Nasir Khan.

The contractor failed to show any progress in the development work even after one year and the CDA cancelled the contract but took no action against him for delay, he said.

It is learnt that delay in development work incurred huge loss to the CDA as it paid funds to the contractor in the start of the project. So far the CDA has failed to hire new contractor to start development work and to meet the demands of allottees, he said.

He said in Sector I-15, CDA had fixed 54 percent quota for general public, 20 percent for affectees of Islamabad, 10 percent for non-commissioned officers (NCOs), 10 percent for employees of federal government from basic pay scale 1-15, five percent for CDA employees, and one percent for working journalists of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

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