NARC DG flays CDA’s plans to take over NARC land

Though the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is planning to develop a housing society in Zone IV of the federal capital, the plan cannot materialise unless National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) sacrifices 1,400 acres of its land for the project.

The employees of NARC have already opposed the CDA’s plan to take over the land dedicated for the development of the housing society.

Zameen.com contacted NARC Director General Dr M Azeem Khan to seek his views on the CDA’s plans in question and learned a number of facts about the matter.

Khan told Zameen.com that NARC’s land was located in a prime area and the CDA wanted to take over this land to develop a housing society over it and generate an additional Rs 150 billion.

He said NARC had been serving the agricultural sector of Pakistan for the last 40 years and had contributed Rs 4,800 billion to the country’s economy since. He said the research organisation had state-of-the-art labs spanning 400 to 500 acres of land.

Expressing his concerns, Khan told Zameen.com that the CDA wanted to acquire the land of the research institution where 1,800 people were working, adding that the institution had a support from the civil society, media and beneficiary organisations of NARC.

He also said Zone IV was mostly an agricultural region and the land in the area was supposed to be used for agricultural purposes only.

Commenting on CDA’s plan to generate Rs 150 billion through the development of a society, Khan said NARC was itself working on nine to 11 initiatives with which it was estimating to add Rs 199 billion to the country’s economy every year. He stressed NARC was a national institution and had been serving the agricultural interests of the country for years.

Asked if CDA had suggested a relocation plan, the NARC DG said the civic authority had not given any such plan, adding that the authority was likely to spare only 100 acres of land where admin offices of NARC were located.

He, through Zameen.com, requested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to strengthen NARC, give the organisation permanent possession of the land in question and reject any summaries related to development of housing society over land allocated to NARC.