ISLAMABAD: The pace of construction work on the first ever parking plaza in Islamabad’s business district - Blue Area - shows the project would not be completed in the stipulated time of March 2023.

So far, work is ongoing in the basement of the building. However, CDA officials claimed that it would be completed on time. The project was started in March this year and according to the PC-I would be completed in one year.

CDA Chairman retired Capt Mohammad Usman a few days ago also visited the construction site and directed for accelerating the work.

Sources said he directed the engineering wing to make every possible efforts to get the project completed on time, adding there should be no compromise on quality of work.

An engineer of the CDA while commenting on the progress of work said: “Apparently, the project cannot be completed in the stipulated time of March as all major work is yet to be carried out. Currently, work is being carried out in the basement of the four-storey building and now we are left with around four months to meet the deadline.” However, he added that if work was carried out with full focus, it was still doable, but it “seems the project will miss the deadline.”

According to the CDA, the National Logistics Cell (NLC) after submitting the lowest bid of Rs1,274.5 million had won the contract and was executing the project as per plan.

The car parking plaza is being constructed near Savour Foods along Jinnah Avenue. The plaza will have the capacity to accommodate 1,300 vehicles at a time. Shops will be constructed on the ground floor of the plaza which will also increase revenue for the CDA. Open-air restaurants will be set up on the fifth floor.

Recently, the chairman also announced that more such plazas would be constructed in various areas of the city to overcome the parking issue.

“Parking is one of the major issues of the city and we will resolve it,” he recently said.

The source said on the direction of the chairman, the engineering wing had already sought bids for qualification and once qualification process was completed, the civic agency will call financial bids. The sources said four new plazas would be built in the city.

A couple of years ago, CDA had announced that it will construct six parking plazas in various areas of the city - three in Blue Area, one near Centaurus Mall, one in F-8 Markaz, two in F-10 Markaz and one plaza each in Karachi Company and I-8 Markaz.

In 2016, the Islamabad Traffic Police had written to the CDA about the shortage of parking spaces in Blue Area and other commercial centres, including F-8 Markaz, where the city’s district courts are situated.

In the past, the CDA instead of constructing multi-storey parking plazas had built two underground parking spaces in Jinnah Super Market. But these parking lots could not be utilised properly even though millions of rupees were spent on their construction.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2022