ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has failed to make headway in the development of Kuri Model Village.

The CDA had acquired land for sectors decades ago but after announcing the award no serious step was taken for development of the model village, which will comprise over 32,00 acres in Kuri, Majohan and Rehala revenue estates. The area falls in Zone IV.

CDA officials said the area could provide thousands of housing units as it is equal to around four residential sectors of Islamabad. One residential sector typically consists of 750 acres.

The officials said after paying compensation and built-up property claims, the civic agency will have around 2,000 acres worth billions of rupees.

However, the civic agency never made any serious effort to settle issues with the locals to get possession of their land to develop the model village.

The officials said an initial survey had showed 1,100 occupants on the land but in 2011 the number rose to 7,000.

At that time, the CDA officials in connivance with the locals added many bogus cases in the list of land ownership claims. Later, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) probed the mater and cleared 34,22 ownership cases.

Since then, the civic agency has made no serious move to resolve issues with the owners to get possession of the land to start the project. The CDA officials said the civic agency had acquired the land in 1968 while built-up-property award was announced in 1971.

But the CDA did not take possession of the land after removing the objections of the locals.

In 2009, the civic agency again announced a revised built-up property award but due to allegations of bogus claims, it could not resolve the issue.

“This is a classic example of negligence. We acquired the land in 1968 but so far have no possession. Legitimate issues and claims of the locals should be resolved on a priority basis and bogus claims should be removed to make any headway; sitting idle is not justified,” said an official.

When contacted, Director Land Shafi Marwat said a few years ago the locals had filed a court case and obtained a stay in their favour.

“So this matter is in litigation and we have submitted an application for early hearing and are hopeful that the issue would be resolved,” he said.

The management, he added, wants to start all stalled sectors as “we have already launched development of E-12, 1-15,1-12 etc.”

Recently, the CDA decided that in future for acquiring land the civic agency will announce both the land and built-up property awards simultaneously to avoid such issues, he said.

In most of the cases in the past, the CDA announced land award and left the built-up award pending that resulted in the mushroom growth of the built-up structures.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2021