Wednesday, June 03, 2009
By Our correspondent

Islamabad

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to make use of the
land lying unutilised in the developed sectors of Islamabad by
creating plots for different purposes including residential,
commercial and community.

Some of the created residential plots, valuing millions of rupees in
the open market, are likely to be given to those having right
connections by transferring their plots from other sectors, it is
reliably learnt.

“We are launching a survey in all the developed sectors including G-5
to identify the unutilised land,” Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu, Director
General, Planning & Development, CDA, told The News.

He said that the residential and commercial plots created out of the
identified land would be sold in the general public in the open
auction to mobilise funds for the CDA. The civic body is in dire
financial straits for quite some time. Its recent public auction of
residential and commercial plots did not generate the projected funds.

Sindhu said the survey would take around six months to complete. He
said the CDA board would shortly approve the launch of the survey. He
believed that a number of plots would be created out of the rejected
land that was lying unused in almost all the developed sectors. He
said that several plots to be available this way would be allocated
for establishing new health centres and other community uses.

Another official said that the transfer of residential plots from less
important and pricey sectors to high valued areas is banned in the
CDA, but its board has the powers to allow shifting of such plots from
one sector to another. There have been such instances when plots were
transferred from G-14 to I-8 and other sectors.

The official said that not even the prime minister, the CDA chairman
or any other authority has the discretionary powers to allot plots in
any sector of Islamabad. This power was dispensed with by Nawaz Sharif
in his second tenure as prime minister, which has not been revived by
the successive government.

He said the CDA has also earlier conducted some surveys of the
unutilised land in the developed sectors and has been selling the
identified land to the general public. Over the past some time, lots
of plots have been created in Sector I-8, which were allotted to the
government servants. One example is the use of the land for this
purpose where the GTS (Government Transport Service) depot used to
exist for years.

“But still a large number of plots can be created as the vast tracts
of unused land are available in different sectors,” the official
said.