ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi is all set to make his first visit to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to get a briefing about the working of the civic agency likely on Wednesday (today).

The CDA falls under the administrative control of the Ministry of Interior. The interior minister will be given a detailed presentation on CDA’s ongoing development work as well as future plans.

Officials of civic agency remained busy on Tuesday in completing the presentation and other arrangements for the said visit. “The interior minister is likely to visit CDA on Wednesday to get a briefing and we are preparing working papers for his briefing,” said a CDA deputy director.

Sources said that the minister will be briefed about the ongoing development projects that include the expansion project of Islamabad Expressway, a portion of Margalla Road to link D-12 and E-11, ongoing work of Park Road, 10th Avenue, 11th Avenue etc. Whereas, he will also be briefed about Islamabad’s master plan as well as development work in some new residential sectors and stalled sectors.

He would also be briefed about the planned projects.

Officials of CDA Dawn spoke to said that there are chances that the interior minister will give new targets to the civic agency.

They, however, said that CDA management should also convince the interior minister to lend his support for resolving two major issues of CDA, which could not be resolved without the acting support of the interior minister.

They said that a mega project of 10th Avenue, worth Rs 10.2 billion – which is a federal government-funded project has been facing delay in completion mainly because of funding. The officials said that the interior minister could play his role in securing maximum funds for this project for the upcoming fiscal year 2024-25.

This project was supposed to be completed by March 2024, but it missed the deadline and sources said that so far only 25pc work is completed. Sources said that so far the federal government had released only Rs3 billion for this project.

Similarly, the officials said that the interior minister could play his role regarding a CDA summary, which is already lying somewhere in the interior ministry or the cabinet division, for the formation of Islamabad’s master plan commission.

They said that in December 2022, CDA had moved the summary after the commission formed in 2018 by the PTI government became inactive.

However, the said summary was not approved rather the interim government directed the CDA to send a revised summary, which was sent in February this year. Officials said that the interior minister’s help would be required to get it approved by the cabinet.

It is relevant to note here, according to the authors of the master plan of Islamabad, prepared in 1960, the blueprint of the capital was supposed to be revised every 20 years in accordance with the need of hours, but no proper revision was made yet that resulted in poor planning issues.

On the other hand, the successive governments made 45 selective changes, without any input from experts, whereas the incumbent government is also set to make another amendment, which is related to the land use change in Sector H-16, for converting two sub-sectors from institutions to residential.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2024