ISLAMABAD: The completion of the first of the proposed five parking plazas in Islamabad has been facing an inordinate delay, raising serious question marks over the efficiency of the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

After missing two deadlines, the under-construction parking plaza in Blue Area is still incomplete as now its gray structure is being finalised. Work on the project was started in March 2022 and was supposed to complete in March 2023 to cater to the city’s business district.

Parking has become one of the major issues in Islamabad over the years as available spaces are shrinking due to an increase in the population.

CDA officials said besides a massive increase in the number of vehicles, poor implementation of by-laws and ill-planning also contributed to the mess.

Launched in March 2022, project in Blue Area is still incomplete after missing two deadlines

They said parking spaces had been designed in the city’s markets and plazas in accordance with the number of shops, but with the passage of time the shop owners violated the layouts and increased the number of shops. Similarly, commercial buildings in marakiz should have adequate parking space in basements, but no focus was paid to this aspect, that resulted in traffic mess in all marakiz, particularly in I-8 Markaz.

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“Now parking spaces are not only shrinking in marakiz but also in small markets known as neighbourhood markets and class three shopping centres,” said the officials.

Initially, these small markets had nine shops (units), but the business community increased the number by converting one unit into many mini-shops, putting an extra burden on services and parking lots.

“Parking is the major issue of the city and special focus should be paid on it,” said an official.

The Blue Area parking project worth Rs1.3 billion was started in March 2022 and was supposed to be completed in March 2023, but subsequently, its deadline was extended to September 30 last year, which also lapsed without much progress.

Then, the deadline was extended to June this year and finally the contractor was asked to complete it by September 15, but still to no avail.

Structures of the building indicate that if even work continues at full pace, a few more months are required for its completion.

CDA’s director media Shahid Kayani, when contacted on Monday night to know about the reasons behind the inordinate delay, said being too late he was not in a position to explain the reasons and give the completion date of the project.

“It’s 8:20pm now, I will let you know tomorrow after talking to concerned officials,” he said.

The plaza is one of the six parking lots, planned by the CDA some years ago.

However, the construction of the first-ever plaza has been facing an inordinate delay due to several reasons while tenders of the remaining five are yet to be floated by CDA.

The other proposed plazas are one each in I-8 Markaz and F-8, two in F-10, and one in G-9 Markaz.

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CDA Chairman Mohammad Ali Randhawa in May this year had taken notice of the delay and visited the site to direct for early completion of the project.

The plaza will have a basement plus-ground floor and six storeys. It will accommodate 900 cars and 150 motorcycles.

On its ground floor, there are shops which the CDA will auction. As per the initial design, the sizes of the shops were small, which were later re-designed to attract investors.

A CDA engineer said initially the project faced delay because of the crossing of a nullah through the project site that forced the contractor to fix the issue of slush and running water before starting work.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2024