Residential or commercial CDA to take I-17 sector issue to IHC

ISLAMABAD, March 28: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) will seek consent of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to change the status of proposed I-17 industrial sector into residential one. "We will request the court to allow us to either cancel the land compensation package announced for the locals of I-17 in 2009 or implement land sharing formula to turn the industrial sector into residential one," the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Spokesman Ramzan Sajid told Dawn on Monday.The court's verdict will decide the fate of controversial I-17 sector where new industrial zone was proposed to be set up two some years back and more than Rs1.5 billion were paid to two big landholders as compensation of their land but more than 4,000 petty landholders are yet to get compensation and thus they are reluctant to hand over their land and houses to the CDA. The authority is seriously considering the conversion of industrial sector into a residential one so that residential plots could be sold to pay the compensation of land to the locals, the spokesman said. The CDA will submit its request to the IHC during hearing of a petition already filed by the locals to get more compensation than the one announced by the CDA in 2009 under which Rs830,000 per kanal will be given. The authority's member, planning, Tahir Shamshad said as the cash strapped CDA had no funds to pay compensation to each and every land holder, it could provide them plots in compensation. For development of industrial sector, the CDA has to remove all locals from the sector and pay them compensation for their property in cash. But if the status of industrial sector was changed into residential one, more than 4,000 land holders can be given small plots in the same sector and the CDA can earn billions of rupees by only selling commercial plots of the sector. "Although the CDA board is empowered to declare I-17 as a residential sector, we do no want to annoy the court by taking any decision on our own," the official said. The controversial award of sector H-16 and I-17 was announced in September 2009 under which two real estate tycoon Malik Riaz and former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Nawaz Khokhar were reportedly paid over Rs1.5 billion but more than 4,000 other villagers were not paid a single penny. They demanded that the cost of land should be more than Rs830,000 per kanal as it was less than the market rate. "We will discuss all aspects of the issue in our board meeting on Tuesday so that different options could be presented before the court to seek its consent over the issue," the spokesman said. More than 4,000 landholders who could not get compensation so far are not giving their lands to the CDA. The CDA's official said in the last board meeting it was considered that the CDA should implement its land sharing formula in I-17 under which one kanal developed plot (with all infrastructure facilities) is given against four kanals of undeveloped land.