ISLAMABAD: City managers of Islamabad and Rawalpindi are planning to give legal cover to unauthorised approval of building plans in each other territory after it emerged that several buildings in Islamabad were mistakenly approved by the Pindi administration due to an unclear boundary line between the two cities.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) have been facing this issue because of boundary issues, mainly near Grand Trunk (GT) Road, Kotha Kalan, Sohan, and Faizabad.

Sources said that RDA had approved building plans for around one dozen projects that fall within the limits of Islamabad but because of confusion, they approved the plan and in most of the buildings have already been constructed. The RDA processed the building plans, as the revenue record of a few estates of Islamabad is still being dealt with by the revenue department of Rawalpindi.

Before the creation of Islamabad, the entire area, where now Federal Capital is located, was part of Rawalpindi. The CDA and ICT acquired most of the land of the area and Islamabad’s revenue department keeps a record of acquired and un-acquired areas of Islamabad; however, the Rawalpindi revenue department still deals with the record of a few estates of Islamabad.

Several projects in Faizabad, Sohan, GT Road were approved by Rawalpindi over unclear demarcation

To resolve this issue, a committee headed by member planning CDA Waseem Hayat Bajwa met at CDA headquarters, which was also attended by officials of CDA, RDA, Rawalpindi Cantonment Board and an official of the revenue department of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration.

The meeting was told that this matter was already presented before the CDA board recently, and the board had authorised this committee to look into this issue on case to case basis. It was decided that in the next meeting, some cases will be placed before this committee for decision.

CDA officials said that until 2018, there was little bit confusion of about Islamabad and Rawalpindi’s boundaries in the said areas which led to the approval of several building plans by RDA, which fall within the limits of Islamabad.

After a Survey of Pakistan was conducted in 2018 to mark the boundaries of Islamabad, it emerged that Rawalpindi had approved plans for several projects which fell in the jurisdiction of Islamabad, and the matter was subsequently referred to the CDA and it was taken up in March and June this year.

The CDA board formed a committee and fixed Dec 31, 2022, as a cutoff date, stating that any building that was built after this date will not be considered by the committee for legalisation. The committee after its first meeting decided it will decide the cases individually.

However, one of the officials told Dawn that if the RDA approved a building plan in the limit of Islamabad then it was their fault and the fee charged by the RDA should be deposited in CDA’s account. He added such building plans should be dealt with by the CDA’s by-laws.

Similarly, he said that if CDA had approved any building plan in Rawalpindi, the fee charged by the CDA should be given to concerned departments of Rawalpindi and they [Rawalpindi administration] should deal with such cases in accordance with their by-laws.

He said that if there was any confusion about the boundaries of the twin cities, after the demarcation conducted by Survey of Pakistan, the confusion must be ended. “There is a need to look into this issue if the building plan were also approved after fixing of boundary pillars in accordance with Survey of Pakistan’s demarcation,” the official said.

The official, however, said that looking into the issue of overlapping boundaries and wrong building plan is a positive development to resolve this issue for good. He said that besides resolving the building plan issue, the committee should also direct for shifting of the pending revenue record of a few estates from Rawalpindi to Islamabad for smooth functioning.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2023