ISLAMABAD: City managers on Friday decided to set up a separate Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) cell in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to implement SDG-11, which called for making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

The CDA board, which met on Friday at the civic agency’s headquarters, took up various items on the agenda for discussion. After detailed deliberation, the board meeting, which was presided over by CDA Chairman Anwaarul Haq, approved establishment of the SGDs cell. It also approved development of the first ever mega data centre in Islamabad.

Talking to Dawn, a board member said CDA Member Planning Sadia Haider presented the summary about the SDGs cell in the meeting. In her summary, she said in order to align CDA’s initiatives, projects and city development with SDGs, setting up of a cell was imperative.

She said a separate cell was important to sensitise urban planners and engineers working in the CDA about SDG-11 so that they could understand the significance of this goal and work towards its achievement by incorporating planning parameters and rules and regulation in policies.

CDA board also decides to set up first-ever mega data centre

Sustainable Development Goal-11 (SDG-11 or Global Goal-11), titled ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’ aims to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

The board member said under the SDG-11, 10 targets had to be achieved. This, he said, was being measured with 16 indicators set to be accomplished by 2030.

“CDA prepares plans and schemes which are directly related to these SDGs, but since record is not maintained as per the requirements of the UNDP, a separate cell was needed,” the board was informed.

The board was further told that UN-Habitat and Planning Commission had already been requested to extend their help to establish the SDGs Cell in the CDA’s planning wing.

The cell will mainly focus on the targets fixed in SDG-11. Through this cell, the CDA also wants to strengthen the capacity of the staff engaged in Planning, Designing and Building Control and build their capacity through the UN-Habitat and Planning Commission.

The CDA board was told that the federal government had established SDGs Cell in the Planning Commission which worked for implementation of sustainable development goals and maintained data of the entire country.

Therefore, it might have more expertise to help the CDA in this regard.

The board then approved the summary of the member planning and allowed establishment of the said cell in the planning wing.

The cell will operate under the Directorate of Spatial Planning with one deputy director and two CDA town planners alongwith the support staff.

Meanwhile, the board also approved establishment of a mega datacentre in the capital through a joint venture.

Through a summary, sources said member Technology and Digitalisation Nauman Khalid said that tier-4 data centre was considered the pinnacle of data centre tiers.

The board was told that at present there was not a single tier-4 data centre in Pakistan, however with the introduction of 5G technology in the near future, the need for data centre/cloud services will increase manifold.

The board was told that the CDA could take building a tier-4 data centre as an alternative revenue generation opportunity through joint ventures. The board approved the summary moved by member Technology and Digitalisation Nauman Khalid and in principle agreed to earmark 12 kanals for setting up the said centre in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, a source said the board, on the directive of the Supreme Court, also took up the issue of the proposed information technology university/IT campus.

In 2007, the CDA had leased out around 330 kanals for establishment of an information technology campus in Zone IV.

The source said a private firm En-Point Technology, associated with the relative of a senior politician, got the said land on lease in 2007. However, later on, due to litigation, the IT university was not established.

The board decided that three proposals would be presented before the Supreme Court for final decision of this case.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2024