ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) board has revised the procedure of auction and allotment of plots under which the successful bidders will have to pay the entire cost of the land within 45 days , Member Administration Sikandar Maikan told Dawn on Friday.

The official said the procedure had been changed to avoid evasion of cost of the land by those who had got both commercial and residential plots through the open auction. He said according to the previous rules, the successful bidders had to pay the entire cost of land to the Authority within a year.

It was an old practice in the CDA that the successful bidders were allowed to start construction of buildings on the auctioned plots after payment of only 50 per cent of the highest bid. "The bidders would sell the buildings without paying the rest of the dues to the CDA," he said.

He said under the new rules, the bidders could not start construction unless they paid the entire cost of the land to the Authority within 45 days. Mr Maikan said under the new procedure, the successful bidders would have to pay 10 per cent of the total cost of plots within 48 hours, 25 per cent within ten days, 50 per cent within 25 days and 100 per cent before 45 days.

He said due to previous ineffective procedure of auction and allotment of plots, some of the successful bidders evaded billions of rupees. "The bidders deprived the CDA of the cost of the land by selling the buildings," he added.

Mr Maikan said he had recently cancelled the allotment of three commercial plots in different areas on which flats had been constructed.

Mr Maikan said most of the evaders had gone in litigation and obtained stay orders from the courts barring the Authority from taking action against them. He said some officials of the estate management directorates and building control section of the CDA would be terminated for conniving with the evaders.