CDA board defers approval of plots restoration policy

[Salman]

ISLAMABAD: Because ‘it favored the defaulters and caused financial loss to the Capital Development Authority’, the CDA Board of Directors on Wednesday deferred re validating its policy that restored rights of buyers to the plots they failed to pay for in time.

CDA had introduced the so-called ‘restoration policy’ in the early days of the previous government and its Estate Wing proposed its re validation.

The CDA board meeting, headed by the CDA chairman, Maroof Afzal, noted that instead of amending a few paragraphs of the existing policy, the restoration policy needed to be formulated from the scratch.

“The papers submitted to the board were vague and it has been decided that the policy vetted by the law department needed to be submitted to the board for approval,” sources in the civic body said.

“The buyers usually stop paying installments on various pretexts and move into litigation,” said an official of the planning wing, adding, “This allowed the buyer to keep the plot and gain time to gather capital to pay for the expensive plot purchased at higher bids at the auction.”

However, the policy not only favored the buyers but also the relevant officials in the CDA, as they would charge only nominal fines to restore the held plot.

“The best example is about a 10,000 square yards plot in Sector G-9, that was restored at Rs2,000 per square yard in 2009-10 but the market rate of the same plot at that time was Rs400,000 per square yards.”

The lacuna in the Policy was brought by the former Member Planning CDA, Mustafain Kazmi and the Board in February 2013 decided to revisit the ‘Policy’ but after almost one year the Estate Wing placed two paragraph amendment to the Board.

According to the law, CDA can also cancel the plots where the owner was changing its usage or not abiding by the building rules despite repeated warnings and notices.

“But practically none of such violators have been taken to task by the CDA, in fact the violators have engaged CDA in the courts cases on various charges,” the official said.

Incidentally, the CDA board also approved to give higher incentives to the local residents in sector E-12, who have been refusing to hand over their land to the civic body despite taking payments.

However, some of the board members opposed the idea of giving more incentives to the affectees of E-12, on the grounds that it would pave way for a new trend in all developing sectors.