KARACHI, Aug 30: The 19th annual meeting of the governing body of the Defence Housing Authority on Saturday reviewed the progress and development activities of the authority for the preceding year.

The meeting, presided over by Defence Secretary Lt Gen (Retd) Hamid Nawaz Khan, was attended among others by Commander, 5 Corps, Lt Gen Tariq Wasim Ghazi, DHA administrator Brig Maqsood Hussain and senior forces officers.

Speaking to the participants, defence secretary, who is also chairman of DHA governing body, expressed his confidence that the DHA management would spare no efforts to attain higher housing and residential standards.

Stressing the need for revamping of the old infrastructure of Defence from phase 1 to 7, he said this important venture should be taken on war footings and added that it would go a long way to enhance the image and credibility of DHA.

He was informed that the DHA was in the process of hiring a consultant to chalk out a plan for phase-wise refurbishment of the decaying infrastructure, the effects of which would start becoming visible by the next year.

DHA’s Executive Board president Lt Gen Ghazi said that Rs1.5 billion were required for the development of the DHA phase-VIII, while Rs1.2 billion would be spent on rehabilitation and refurbishment being undertaken in the old phases of Defence. The amount would be made available from the revenue generated through the recently-launched Creek City project, he said.

The BoG also reviewed the progress on co-generation desalination and power plant in the DHA.

Administrator, DHA, informed the meeting that all intricate issues with the KESC and the Sui Southern Gas Company had been resolved.

He said that a state of the art desalination plant was expected to arrive in the country soon, adding that installation work of the plant would start in October this year and would be completed in a record period of 18 months.

The administrator said that with the completion of this project in early 2005 the problems of water and power shortage in the DHA would be significantly resolved.—PPI