January 12, 2008	Saturday	Muharram 02,1429

ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: The block of the Margalla Towers which had collapsed in the October 2005 earthquake will be auctioned next month.

Sources in the civic administration told Dawn on Friday that to make the open auction attractive to builders and developers, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has increased the covered area for the site by 30 per cent.

Similarly, the new building to be erected on the site would be allowed to have two basements and 12 storeys, two more than the collapsed one had.

A CDA official said experts had declared the collapsed part of the Margalla Towers dangerous and beyond repair. Whosoever buys the damaged building in the auction will have to clear the site and construct a new one.

The CDA had deposited Rs1.7 billion with the Supreme Court for payment of compensation to the owners of the apartments in the destroyed block of the Margalla Towers. The damaged building and the site now belongs to the CDA.

“As the CDA has paid Rs1.7 billion in compensation, it is obvious that the property would be auctioned for more than that,” said the official.

Surveyors appointed by the former government had suggested that the site of the collapsed Margalla Towers be auctioned to pay compensation to people who owned apartments in the badly- built building.

Before it decided to allow more storeys and covered area, the CDA thought that the site might fetch Rs1.5 billion, about Rs1 billion less than the compensation demanded by the owners of 147 apartments in the collapsed building.

However the Supreme Court fixed the compensation at Rs1.7 billion. Of the 147 apartments in the ill-fated building, 38 were totally destroyed, killing 72 occupants and injuring 89 others.

The Supreme Court had rejected the plea of the people who lost their apartments in the collapse of the Margalla Towers in the 2005 earthquake that the Rs90 million paid to them as rent should not form part of the Rs1.75 billion compensation announced by the court for them earlier.

CDA sources said that the hulk and the land of the destroyed Margalla Towers now belong to the CDA which is likely to auction it in the next few days.

We have suggested to the CDA to auction the lot as it is as demolishing and clearing the site would be additional work for the CDA, a senior official of the authority told Dawn.

Meanwhile the government despite hectic efforts has so far failed to get the builders of Margalla Towers’ — Ramzan Khokhar, his wife Kehkashan Khokhar and a friend Abdul Hafeez Sheikh — extradited from Britain.

The Towers in sector F-10 collapsed due to substandard material used in their construction.