ISLAMABAD, May 21: After a delay of 10 months, the city managers on Monday took the first practical step to lay infrastructure network in the Park Enclave housing scheme by opening bids for construction of the boundary wall.

“The lowest bid was submitted by a construction firm - M. Arif & Co. - as it quoted 19 per cent below the Military Engineering Service (MES) schedule and 10 per cent below the National Highway Authority (NHA) rates of 2009,” said CDA spokesman Ramzan Sajid.

He said a total of 17 construction firms had submitted their bids for the first phase of the development work - construction of boundary wall. Work on the other phases like construction of roads, sewers and drainage network would be initiated very shortly, he added.

It has been learnt that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has eaten up over 80 per cent of the money generated through the sale of 650 plots in Park Enclave instead of utilising it on laying of the infrastructure.

However, the spokesman quoted the CDA chairman Farkhand Iqbal as saying:  “The authority has sufficient funds for the development of the scheme and the work would be executed on a fast pace.”

The chairman said the whole area of Park Enclave had already been demarcated. However, sources in the CDA said the civic agency had so far not addressed the land acquisition issue and locals of Kuri and Majjoan villages (where the scheme is being established) were demanding compensation for their land.

The sources said the project was launched 10 months back (on July 20) but its development work could not be started due to ‘slackness’ of the civic body.

“Under a decision of the CDA board, 40 per cent of the money deposited by the plot owners can be spent on other projects,” the spokesman added.

He said there was no issue of money in the development of the scheme rather it was delayed due to some technical problems.

However, a senior official of the CDA said the authority had collected around Rs2 billion and 80 per cent of it had been spent on payment of employees’ salaries and dues of some contractors.

The CDA sources said another housing project - Sector I-15 - remained in the doldrums only because its money had been spent on different projects like construction of roads, bridges and underpasses in 2005-06. Now the plot seekers in the scheme are demanding reimbursement of their money.

The Park Enclave housing project would involve the construction of 700 houses in phase-I and another 600 houses in phase–II.

Meanwhile, the CDA has completely changed the development plan of Park Enclave and decided to go for traditional development instead of modern infrastructure work as promised at the time of launching of the scheme.

The development plan has been changed after National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) rejected technical bids of all four pre-qualified construction firms compelling the CDA to go for fresh tendering.