ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: Unable to find a way to beat the financial crunch, the new management of Capital Development Authority (CDA) is relying on old methods to generate revenue.

Dawn had learnt reliably that the civic agency is all set to sell four plots in Blue Area’s extension.

A Project Management Organisation (PMO) wing official on the condition of anonymity said: “The authority has decided in principle to sell off four plots measuring 1333.33 square yard in Blue Area’s extension opposite G-9 sector.”

On the other hand, an official of the treasury wing opined that the new CDA chairman and his team were not being wise by relying on this method: “The authority has constantly ignored the need to generate revenue from alternative business means.”The PMO official defended the new CDA chairman’s move: “The authority could not find any creative way of business to generate funds and most of the future business generation summaries are facing red tape.”

However, precautions are being taken to make the process transparent.

“This time, the auction of four plots will be through open auction since the last one saw a controversial end because of shady dealings initiated by the last management of the CDA,” observed an administration wing official.

Indeed in August this year, the authority had announced the sale of 12 plots through prequalification bids and 11 buyers were selected through it.

Later, on August 31, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had to intervene and block the auction of plots. He also removed the then CDA management.

“The new management wants to make sure that all steps taken are transparent and this is the main reason that an open auction is being considered,” claimed the administration wing official.

An official of the finance wing added that the civic agency expects to generate Rs4 billion from the trade.

“The dates haven’t been finalised, but will definitely be announced through national dailies,” maintained the official.

Asked to comment as to why the authority could not announce the sale of other plots of Blue Area, he claimed: “The real estate market is not growing and an overall slump has gripped the country’s economy.”

The official added that civic agencies of densely populated regions such as Lahore Development Authority and even Karachi City District Government were also not going for real estate related commercial ventures.

Meanwhile, when approached, the spokesman for the civic authority Ramzan Sajid maintained: “Chairman CDA Syed Tahir Shahbaz has directed the planning division to work on the auction of the plots.

“The chairman is aware of the financial needs of the authority and in this regard we are only going with segmented auction (selected auction of few commercial plots) in the extension of Blue Area’s skyline,” he added.

The spokesman claimed that the financial health of CDA was considerably better, and the authority had smoothly transacted salaries into the accounts of its 20,000 staff members and also paid allowances.

“We are not on verge of any major financial crisis,” he maintained.

He added that the civic authority’s management was hopeful of generating better revenues from the upcoming auction once the proposal of sale of Blue Area plots extension phase was approved by the CDA board.