The allegedly Illegal occupation of land by nefarious elements and private developers is proving troublesome for the Capital Development Authority (CDA), and even the involvement of higher courts in the settlement of land issues have not yielded any significant benefits for the authority.
According to a report released by the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), CDA is yet to get possession of almost 1,800 kanals of land valued at Rs 4.6 billion in Kuri Model Village and Sector E-11, which the authority claims has been illegally occupied.
The land in Kuri Model Village, located along Park Road in the outskirts of Islamabad, had been acquired by the CDA in 1968, but almost 1,342 kanals and 11 marlas of land in the locality is still under the possession of private developers, according to the AGP’s report. CDA has estimated the value of the allegedly illegally occupied land to be roughly Rs 2.3 billion. Though the authority had sent legal notices to the encroachers in 2012, the situation remains unchanged to date.
In the case of Sector E-11, the CDA had handed over possession of 2,605 kanals of land to private developers, however, the developers encroached on an extra 458 kanals later. The value of this chunk of land, as estimated by the CDA, is Rs 2.3 billion.
The Enforcement Directorate of the civic authority is responsible for taking action against the alleged encroachers and retrieving the land, but according to Enforcement Directorate Director General Ms Asiya Gul, the lower court’s decision in favour of the private developers had been barring the CDA from taking action against the alleged illegal occupiers of the land in question.
The lacklustre approach of the CDA in retrieving the land is not only a problem for the authority itself – which is already facing financial problems – but also for the investors and prospective homeowners of Kuri Model Village and Sector E-11.
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