CDA yet to hire contractor for Park Enclave scheme

[Salman]

CDA yet to hire contractor for Park Enclave scheme


ISLAMABAD - While keeping alive its tradition of slow development in the residential areas, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has yet to complete the process of selecting the right firm for the development of Park Enclave housing scheme despite a delay of over six months since its launch. “As many as 15 construction firm had applied for prequalification, of which the authority short listed four firms. The authority had decided that financial and technical bids of the project would be opened on 8 October but the date was later extended until January, due to a delay in documentation process”, an official source told Pakistan Today.
The source said the delay in documentation process for the selection of the firm could delay the development work since the same had been witnessed in other residential sectors being developed by the CDA. That delay, he said, would discourage the potential investors. The former CDA chairman, Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, had said that the CDA would complete the project in ‘a record period of time’ at the launch of the scheme.
He said the CDA’s plan to combining development and designing of the project could also affect the quality of the work since they were two totally different areas of expertise. Under that plan, the contractor would have to prepare the project’s design according to their own construction model.
The official said the Park Enclave housing project would involve the construction of 700 houses in phase-I and another 600 houses in phase–II of the scheme.
Under that plan, he added, the scheme would be developed in two phases. In Phase-I, a gated housing society comprising about 700 houses would be developed.
The cash-starved CDA has offered just 700 & 500-square yards residential plots in the first phase of the project. This is the first sector that the CDA has launched for private citizens in decades. For many years, the authority has been giving plots in sectors like I-8, G-13 and G-14 only to government employees, hence barring the citizens from applying for those schemes.
The official said the CDA planned to sell 600 plots in the second phase of the Park Enclave project after a few months of the completion of the project, which would finally touch the Park Road. Hence, he said, the price of the plots would be much more than those completed in the first phase.
In the first phase, he said, the CDA had failed to sell all the plots and they could sell only 600 plots despite extending the date of application.
The scheme is located just only 4 km from Islamabad Club, near the intersection of two 600-foot wide roads, and it would be accessible from all major roads such as Kashmir Highway, Park Road, Lehtrar Road, Kuri Road and Islamabad Highway.