ISLAMABAD, Sept 11: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has finalised the plan to construct coal-run 100 megawatts power house to meet the energy requirements of the federal capital.

This was stated by Chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) Farkhand Iqbal during a meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Division. The meeting was chaired by Kalsoom Parveen on Tuesday.

The chairman said that project was advertised in August and 16 companies have submitted letter of interest. Soft loan will be barrowed from banks for the project and it will be returned within 25 years.

Energy requirement of Islamabad is 63MW so electricity will not be included in national grid station and will be used exclusively for Islamabad, he said.

Coal will be brought from Chakwal and for that railway track of Islamabad will be further increased by 2.5 kilometers. Location of power house can be near Rawal Dam, he said.

While discussing the issue of land vacation, CDA chairman said: “CDA does not have any force to take action against land mafia. They attacked on me twice during my small tenure as chief of the civic body.”

Additional Secretary Cabinet Division, Shahidullah Baig said that CDA should have separate police station to deal with the issues of land acquisition.

Chairperson Committee Kalsoom Parveen asked about the policy regarding conversion of categories of plots i.e. residential into commercial, marriage halls into multi-stories flats and hotels and number of plots converted in these categories so far.

Director General CDA, Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu informed the committee that in the history of Islamabad only one plot’s trade has been changed. Plot near Red Mosque was allotted for marriage hall in 1995 but after the operation at Red Mosque, a delegation of Red Mosque visited CDA and said that they will now allow a marriage hall there because numbers of students were died there.

“Plot has been converted into a multi-storey residential building and allottee has been instructed to deposit Rs125 million as a trade change fee,” he said.