The Capital Development Authority (CDA) seems to be dragging its feet on the construction of around 2.2-kilometre F-11 Service Road (West). Despite the formal launching of work on the project one month back, the only sign of development is the establishment of the solitary ‘Site Office’ with no signs of machinery in sight. The CDA itself is the execution agency of the project, but its concerned department has been unable to move the required machinery from its well-equipped Machinery Pool Organisation (MPO), which is located hardly four kilometres from the site.
CDA Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, while formally inaugurating the project, announced that it would be completed in a year at a total cost of Rs80 million. Now, out of that one year, more than a month has already passed and there are no signs of any groundwork on the project. When the project was launched over a month ago, the land on which the F-11 Service Road (West) is to be constructed was free of any encroachments or under adverse possession.
However, the delay by the CDA in demarcation and launch of work has provided ample opportunity to the ‘land mafia’ to dig their claws in and cause hindrance in work, a practice that has always troubled the CDA in the past. When contacted, the spokesman for the CDA, Deputy Director (Public Relations & Protocol) Ramzan Sajid, said that the CDA has already awarded the contract of work to the Chaudhry Lateef & Co and deployment of necessary machinery on the site is already in the process.
He said that every effort is being made to complete work within the stipulated period of one year. To another question, the CDA spokesman said that the land on which the F-11 Service Road (West) is being constructed has no encroachments and no part of it is under adverse possession now.
“There were a few cases in which people tried to create problems but as the whole stretch of land was already acquired and compensation, both in cash as well as in the form of plots, were made, the complaints of these people were addressed and now there was no possibility of anybody creating any problem in this regard,” Ramzan Sajid added.
