Park Enclave comes to a standstill

[Salman]

Park Enclave comes to a standstill

ISLAMABAD - Progress on development of Park Enclave - a posh housing colony announced by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) a year ago - has virtually come to a standstill after the city managers - who have recently announced to execute the project relying on Authority’s expertise - rejected the deficient design and estimates of Package-I of the project prepared by CDA’s Structure Wing.

Two weeks ago when Nespak - consultant for the project - has announced that not even a single out of four pre-qualified firms for designing and building of the Park Enclave has technically qualified to carryout the project - the city managers have announced that CDA would execute the project itself.

Structure Wing of the Authority - whose operations are overseen by the Planning Wing of the Authority - were asked by the city managers to initiate work on the Package-I - construction of boundary wall and access road to Park Enclave - and estimations a few days ago.

Ill-prepared staffers of the structure wing, however, come up with an idea to construct 4.5-inch thick and five feet high boundary wall, while the cost they estimated for this work was Rs 20 million. All the work done by the structure wing officials was based on routine practices and without visiting the site of the project, an official said.

Resultantly, the Chairman CDA rejected the paper work and estimations done by the CDA officials using their “expertise” and now directed the concerned quarters to do the Package-I inline with the pre-cost construction of boundary wall.

The CDA officials have objected the work of structure wing officials taking ground that the work was done without keeping in mind the ground situation at the site. “Just think of it that such an elegant and costly housing society would have only 4.5 inches thick boundary wall with plaster on its one side. A seasonal nullah that crosses the boundary wall at five places is not even mentioned in the documents, while the proposed guard posts are also not included in Rs 20 million estimations,” said a concerned official.

“Now, the Chairman CDA has given us go-ahead signal with construction of boundary wall on pre-cost basis. In pre-cost basis, the panels of the boundary wall would be prepared at factory and it would be easy to remove them during construction of Park Enclave when and if needed,” he informed.

However, another high official of the authority said that work on boundary wall and access road to Park Enclave is just eyewash.

“In fact there is no progress on the project. Today, CDA is there where it was a year ago. Investors have been demanding their money back from CDA while CDA has nothing to repay them,” he lamented.

While, some “sincere” officials of the authority have continuously been comprehending humming of conspiracy against the CDA’s failure to launch this project smoothly and timely. “A property tycoon who had announced his housing society on the pattern of CDA’s Park Enclave a few kilometres away has now announced apartments at the same location.”

“He said situation would be in favour of CDA regarding Park Enclave when property tycoon would complete the booking of its apartments likewise his housing colony,” he said. Well-informed official also narrated the malicious role of some paid servants of property tycoon, who are currently working in CDA but indeed trying to sabotage the smooth launch of Park Enclave.

However, several officials were of the view that CDA could not execute this project by just relying its officials, who they think are incapacitated to carry out such an enormous and technical project.

Talking to TheNation, CDA Member Planning Abdul Aziz Qureshi said that structure wing of the authority has submitted the design and estimates of boundary wall and access road to Park Enclave, however, he said it was not the final decision.

“The CDA has decided to at least complete the design and building of Package-I (boundary wall and access road) using its resources. We have both the plans with us and Chairman of the Authority would decide either to construct 4.5 inches thick wall or go for pre-cost construction of wall,” he said. He was of the view that things would be better in this regard soon.