ISLAMABAD: The city managers are yet to call tenders for construction of five parking plazas in the capital while final touches are being given to the base work of a plaza in Blue Area. The latter was started in March last year but pace of work on the plaza is slow.

The CDA, last year, had announced that it will construct five new parking plazas in various areas of Islamabad to cope with the growing parking issue. However, this work has not been awarded yet.

CDA Chairman Mohammad Usman has been monitoring progress of the work being carried out on the plaza in Blue Area and on Saturday, after getting briefing on this project, he tweeted: “Construction of Parking Plaza in Blue Area - preparation of bed for raft concrete after diverting all nullahs.”

Even though, efforts are being made to expedite work on this project, it seems that the project may not be completed in its stipulated time in March this year, as so far, base work is not fully complete.

Blue Area plaza unlikelyto be completed instipulated time dueto slow pace of work

According to 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.

Last year, in his first media briefing, the chairman of CDA had announced that five new parking plazas would be constructed to overcome the challenge of shortage of parking space in the city. However, CDA officials said that apparently, due to weak financial position of the CDA, coupled with expenditure of under-construction mega projects such as Margalla Road, I.J. Principal Road, Bhara Kahu bypass road and expansion of expressway project, the CDA’s finances do not allow it to start a new mega project.

“We have not shelved this project, but currently, our priority is to get the ongoing projects worth billions of rupees finished,” said an officer.

Earlier, a few 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 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.

While, on the other hand, the CDA has also failed to ensure parking in basement of commercial buildings, which has resulted into burden of vehicles on available parking area. In almost all marakaz of the city, owners of plazas have hardly been using their basements for parking. “Besides, construction of new plazas we will also have to make the owners of commercial plazas use their basements for parking,” said another official.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2023