ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad prison is set to become a reality following the acquisition of land by the Capital Development Authority (CDA)for it in Jhangi Sayyedan.

As the matter has entered the final phase, the CDA chairman, member estate Amer Ali and the relevant officers will brief IHC judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui about the progress on the project on Thursday. Justice Siddiqui is the member of the committee overseeing the jail project.

“Out of the total 720 kanal only 90 kanal has to be acquired by the CDA,” a senior official in the estate department said adding that the left over cases are being resolved, because the civic body wants to clear the succession issue first before dealing with the owner.

“This patch of 90 kanal is owned by the families whose succession is not clear, and we want this issues resolved before making the payments,” the official added.

The CDA has already paid around Rs596.60 million to the landholders and the remaining land is estimated to be worth Rs70 million. Furthermore, the DC CDA, has also issued public notice inviting objections to the award settled for the built up property (BUP).

Since there are only five properties in the said land which includes three brick kiln and two kutcha houses, it is expected that the settlement of claims with the owners will be made in near future.

The ground breaking of Islamabad model prison was performed in November 2013 at a ceremony by the former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Originally planned to be completed by the end of 2013, the Islamabad model prison project was conceived in 2009 and plans began to be prepared in 2011, however the land procurement was delayed due to mismanagement in the CDA.

The site of prison is close to the village of Jhanghi Seydan, near Islamabad-Lahore motorway toll plaza and after taking the possession of land it will be transferred to the ICT administration for construction of the Islamabad model prison.

The delay in taking over the possession of land was troubling for the ICT too as the construction of boundary wall of the prison is to be done by Pakistan Public Works Department (Pak-PWD) at Rs130 million.

However, the builder has asked the ICT to enhance the cost due to the delays on the grounds that the prices of raw material have revised upwards.

The Islamabad police have been demanding a jail in the federal capital for long, because they have to bring some hardened criminals or even terror suspects from jails in Punjab for trial.

With a capacity for 2,000 prisoners the Islamabad prison will be divided into different classes. VIP prisoners will have a separate block.

Besides, the model jail will have a training centre for jail officials, vocational training centre for prisoners.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2014