ISLMABAD: The federal cabinet has approved a proposal for allotting 51 kanal commercial land in E-11 sector to support the financial sustainability of the proposed Jinnah Medical Complex (JMC), which will be built at H-11.

Sources said recently the federal cabinet approved a summary of the Ministry of Interior through circulation, directing the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to hand over the land to the Ministry of Health Services and Regulation free of cost.

Sources in the CDA said the interior ministry through a letter dated March 30 informed the civic agency that the cabinet had approved the summary, adding the land should be handed over to the health ministry. “Yes, cabinet has approved a summary in this regard. Soon we will hand over this land to ministry of health,” said a source in the CDA.

The 51 kanal and 16 marla land located in the northern strip of E-11 was in the past fraudulently allotted by the CDA to local landlords. The land remained in the possession of the landlords for around two decades. However, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) retrieved the land worth billions of rupees and handed it over back to the CDA.

Sources said NAB and CDA jointly repossess the land and when the matter was presented before Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, he appreciated NAB for retrieving the land. The prime minister stated that the land should be utilised for health projects, particularly JMC.

The sources said it was likely that the health ministry will either auction the land or build a commercial component of the project such as hotels and commercial areas to help economic sustainability of the JMC.

“Since the land is now the property of the health ministry, they will decide who to utilise the land,” an officer of CDA said.

It is relevant to note here that JMC was originally supposed to be built in H-16, where the prime minister had also laid its foundation stone in July 2024.

However, before the start of the work, the project got embroiled in controversies as the land was found not to be encumbrance free with pending compensation claims of local landlords. This resulted in the shifting of the site to H-11/2 near the police lines. The sources said that due to the controversy, international funding, which the government was exploring for JMC, also faced a setback. However, still the government wants to start the public welfare project as soon as possible.

The PC-I worth Rs212 billion had already been approved for the JMC which was to be executed in two phases. In the first phase, a hospital will be constructed costing around Rs80 billion. In the second phase, a medical college and other related facilities, including hostels, will be developed. Tendering process is being finalised for the first phase. The project is an initiative of the federal government, with the federal health ministry and the CDA executing it. CDA is providing technical support related to tendering process. The sources said four companies had been shortlisted for the project. The health ministry will formally take over the project soon, they said.

Earlier, addressing at the groundbreaking ceremony in July 2024, the prime minister had said the complex would be one of the region’s best medical centres, where deserving people would receive 100 per cent free medical treatment.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2026