Islamabad: The federal cabinet on Monday approved several amendments proposed by a special body tasked with making revisions to the master plan of the capital city, a news source reported. Commission members Nayyar Ali Dada and Ali Asghar Khan briefed the cabinet members on the suggested changes.
The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, who approved the interim version of the master plan. Under this blueprint, the authorities concerned aim to develop additional green areas, overcome civic issues, improve sanitation conditions, and regulate the mushroom growth of illegal housing schemes in Islamabad.
The cabinet approved the commission’s recommendations to develop additional open spaces and control the concrete cover, develop new marks, set up model villages as well as sewerage treatment plants.
Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Amer Ali Ahmed also presented a plan to restructure the civic agency. He proposed that the CDA should appoint private stakeholders as the its board members.
As per the proposal, there will be a nine-member board with five members (including the chairman) elected from the private sector and four ex-officio members.
Other recommendations that gained the cabinet’s approval included:
A proposal to generate G-6 to extend commercial area from 97-Kanal to 517-Kanal, expand parks on 82 kanals instead of 29 kanals, build 16,515 new apartments on 1,297 kanals of approved residential spaces, and increase public and communal structures & places from 556 to 700 kanals.
A 40-kilometre-long and 600ft-wide ring road project (from Rawat to Bhara Kahu), construction of the south-eastern bypass and link roads for zones II, IV and V (covering 100-kilometres between them).
Formation of a commission to preserve historical sites and explore tourism potential.
Development of four new parks (designed similar to the F-9 park) in the rural Islamabad and another park to be established along the motorway in Zone I that will be spread between to subsectors in H-16.
Development of high-rises on condition of reduced ground cover. The markaz areas were exempted from this condition or any other changes in class three markets.
Waiver of the 400-kanals of land condition for the housing development and permission to develop projects on land ranging between 20 to 200 kanals. The land requirement will be subject to review to discourage illegal plotting in rural areas.
Desilting of Simly and Rawal lakes to counteract water scarcity issues on an interim basis; until new reservoirs like Shahdara and Chirrah achieve completion status.
Clean water would be transported from Tarbela via the Ghazi Barotha project, which will supply 200 million gallons of water to twin cities daily.
Hiring of a consultant who will present a report on natural and cultural assets and assessment of all other influencing aspects in order to make last revisions to the Islamabad master plan.
Moreover, given the fact that Islamabad has 35 public and private universities, the development of software technology parks for various zones came under discussion – in a bid to make the capital a ‘knowledge city’; while the matter of katchi abadis was postponed till the completion of a throrough feasibility study.
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