ISLAMABAD: For construction of five parking plazas in Islamabad, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has received documents of 17 companies for the pre-qualification round.

CDA’s officers said that currently the documents of the said companies are being scrutinised and it is likely that in the next couple of weeks, the process of qualification would be completed. They said that after this, the CDA will call bids for construction of plazas and out of the abovementioned 17 companies, the qualified ones would be eligible for taking part in the bidding process.

“We are scrutinising the documents of 17 companies. Once this process is completed we will go for calling tenders,” said an engineer of CDA.

When asked about whether CDA will invite tenders of all five planned plazas, he said: “This would be decided later and we will see position of availability of funds. I think this is a priority project and we will go for construction of a maximum number of plazas.”

Last year, the CDA board gave a go-ahead for construction of six multi-storey parking plazas in Blue Area - major business centres of Islamabad with parking capacity of about 3,500 vehicles. As per CDA’s plan, three plazas would be constructed in Blue Area, one in F-8 and two in F-10 Markaz.

According to the plan, the CDA would also sell out a few floors of parking plazas of Blue Area to meet the construction cost of the entire project. CDA officials said that an estimated 350,000 vehicles enter and leave Islamabad every day, while an equivalent number are owned by the capital’s residents and the growth rate of vehicle ownership in Islamabad is much higher than the national growth rate.

According to a document of CDA, growing motorisation, combined with inadequate management strategies, change in land use and transportation planning have led to a significant level of traffic congestion resulting in the lack of parking space.

It is relevant to note here that besides Blue Area, in almost all markets and marakiz of Islamabad, people face a parking issue, due to unplanned growth of markets.

An official of CDA said that all major commercial plazas are bound to have parking lots in their basements but many of them are using basements for commercial purposes. Similarly, the official said, class-three shopping centres, which are originally designed to have eight to 12 shops, have been expanded illegally by traders as one main shop has been converted into small eight to 10 shops and this alteration caused a parking issue as well.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, the CDA out of the said six, had awarded contract of one plaza adjacent to Savour Foods. As per its PC-I, this parking plaza is to be completed by March next year. However, the pace of construction shows that it may not be complete by then as so far, hardly 10 to 15percent work on the plaza has been carried out.

However, an officer attributed the slow pace of work to an unavoidable situation, adding that several nullahs pass through the project site and due to frequent flow of water and slush, the construction company faces hindrance in work.

National Logistics Cell (NLC) is executing this project worth Rs1,274.5 million. Once completed, this plaza will have the capacity to accommodate 1,300 vehicles at a time. Shops will also be constructed on the ground floor while open air restaurants will be setup on the fifth floor.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2022