ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Tariq Fazal Chaudhry on Wednesday directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to take possession of the land for King Hamad University of Nursing and Allied Sciences without further delay.

Nine months after the inauguration of the project by the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the CDA is still facing problem in getting the land for the university.

The university will be constructed on 237 kanals on Park Road Chatta Bakhtawar, in Chak Shahzad area.

The CDA had acquired the land in 1981 without paying the locals for the Built-up Property (BUP) at that time and and hence the delay in getting possession of the land.

In January this year, the former prime minister had inaugurated the project, though the CDA was still to take possession of the land.

The civic authority still facing problems in getting land despite passing of nine months since the project’s inauguration

State minister for CADD, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry while chairing a meeting to review the progress on the project, showed his concerns over CDA’s apathy and directed the members concerned to resolve this issue in shortest possible time.

“There should be no further delay in this project, we are thankful to Bahrain government for their support as they will spend over Rs3 billion on the construction of the state of the art nursing university. Today, I directed the CDA to get possession of the land so that we can start the construction,” the state minister told Dawn.

CDA’s member estate Khushal Khan, member planning Asad Mehboob Kayani, director regional planning Ayub Tariq and other officials attended the meeting.

The meeting decided to create 500 plots to allot them to the locals in return for their BUPs.

Sources in the CDA said that deadlock with the locals over the BUP claims persisted.

“There is a deadlock between the CDA and locals as we think that there are around 430 to 450 BUP claims but locals say that they are 700,” an official of the CDA said.

He said that there were only 134 houses/havelis in last year’s list, but the number of BUP claims jumped to over 430 in the tentative list and people after making new construction and are trying to get their names included in the list. The area falls within the constituency of CADD minister, and his relatives are among the affected people.

Member Estate Khushal Khan said that in the meeting the CADD minister directed the CDA to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“Soon we will announce BUP award then after handing over plots to locals, we will get on spot possession of the land from the locals,” he said and added that the minister also directed the MPO directorate of CDA that after finalisation of BUP award, they should immediately start some initial work such as construction of roads, etc.

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in 2014 announced that he would fund the nursing university construction.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2017