March 28, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 27: Military authorities have instructed the city’s civic agency to clear hurdles in the establishment of a new General Headquarters (GHQ) in Islamabad, sources told Dawn.

Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Kamran Lashari was called to the existing GHQ in Rawalpindi on Wednesday where he spent more than an hour with senior army officers in discussion.

Before the meeting, the military had directed the CDA and the capital administration to facilitate it in the construction of a new GHQ complex in E-10 and D-11 sectors.

The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration was told to relocate all villagers from D-11 so that infrastructural development could be started there.

The CDA was also instructed to construct different approach roads around the site where the military complex is being developed.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which secured overwhelming majority in Election 2008, has decided to stick to its previous stance that there was no need to establish a new army headquarters in the capital.

“We will stick to our previous stand and if we deviate from it, media will be justified to criticise us,” PPP leader Farhatullah Babar told Dawn.

He said the PPP would continue with its policies that were adopted when the party was in the opposition in the previous government.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, in a press conference in December 2006, had also termed the GHQ “the most expensive project in the history of Pakistan”.

PML-N leaders Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Mushahidullah Khan and Syed Zafar Ali Shah claimed that in the name of the GHQ, the military government had actually launched a huge housing scheme where residential units would be built at a cost of $2.4 billion over an area of 2,450 acres.

They claimed that it would be the only GHQ which would have 90 bungalows of six bedrooms each, 300 bungalows of four bedrooms each and 14,750 luxury apartments.

Construction of the new GHQ in sector E-10 and D-11 began in September 2006 amid criticism from opposition parties that alleged it was meant to pamper and entrench the military establishment at the cost of public good.

However, the military insisted that shifting the GHQ from Rawalpindi to Islamabad had been long planned.

Residential sectors like E-11, E-7 and E-6, and rural areas of Saidpur, Shah Allah Ditta, Kalinger, Mehra Bedi and Margalla Hills have been declared “sensitive areas” because of their proximity to the new GHQ.

Sector E-10, the hub of the under-construction complex, is adjacent to the Air Headquarters, the Naval Headquarters and the National Defence University.

A source in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) said the CDA had no involvement in the designing and construction of the army headquarters. “Everything is being done by the army with the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) acting as consultants”, he added.