ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has still not finalised the list of rightful owners of plots in Sector I-14, thanks to the alleged corrupt practices in the civic body.

“The last list prepared by the land and rehabilitation department of the civic body contained more names of outsiders than of genuine allotees,” said an official of the planning wing.

“The main issue is that they are not ready to take responsibility to finalise the list; maybe to accommodate their favourite property dealers,” he said.

According to the official of the planning wing, the officials in the land directorate are not even clear whether the number of affected people is 680 or 780.

‘Corrupt practices’ blamed for delay in preparing the list

Their plots do not exist on the ground despite the fact they had allotment papers from the CDA.

Last time the list was prepared by Amir Shehzad, deputy director Land and Revenue, on April 25. The date for balloting for those plots that had been deleted from the map following redesigning of the sector or were allotted to two persons, was fixed for April 30, 2014.

However, the balloting had to be cancelled as a large number of genuine allottees turned up and created rumpus.

It was found that the list did not have the names of those whose plots had been deleted. Despite the passing of over two months, the land department has still not revised the list.

Meanwhile, member estate, Amer Ali, assured Dawn that an inquiry would be held in this regard under the supervision of director securities Liaquat Abbasi.

“If needed the case will be sent to NAB,” Mr Ali said.

Though the number of allottees is disputed, an official of the land department said that there were around 680 plots that had been cancelled when the sector was redesigned in 2005-06.

During that re-designing phase, the entire I-14 sector was declared residential area but plots of 780 people went missing.

The land directorate however claims that the number of claimants stood at 680, but there is no final list having names and their CNICs.

“During redesigning, some plots were included in road construction area while some were merged into parks,” said the planning wing official.

At the same time, due to ‘carelessness’ of the officials, many people were given two plots.

But since then, the civic body has not cared about developing the plots.

The issue came to light when a large number of people, who wanted to start construction on their plots, found that their plots existed only on paper.

“The main issue is that the number of plots is less than the number of claimants in the sector,” said a senior official of the land directorate.

The official blamed the planning wing for not doing enough to adjust the affected people.

The spokesman for the CDA, Asim Khichi, said the matter was nearing a solution, as more plots were being created in the same sector.

“The planners are using satellite imagery to carve out new plots,” he added.

The I-14 sector was originally established as an industrial sector in 1968. Later, some portions of the sector were declared as residential area to settle villagers of I-11, I-12 and D-12, whose land had been acquired by the CDA.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2014