ISLAMABAD, Oct 13: The city managers are planning to develop residential sectors through public-private partnership to accelerate the pace of their development, Dawn learnt on Monday.

“Under the plan the entire sector, after announcing awards (mode of compensation) of land would be sold to private parties and they would deal with the landholders in connection with compensation of land and their built-up property (BUP),” a senior official of Capital Development Authority (CDA) told Dawn on Monday.

So far the plan is believed to be the best possible solution to develop new sectors in Islamabad as acquisition of land was the main reason for the delay in their development.

It has been learnt that the CDA, being a government organisation could not go beyond the parameters set for acquisition of land and on the other hand landholders usually do not accept the compensation they were offered. “In this situation the matter lingers on and cause delay in development of new sectors,” a senior official of the CDA said.

He said if the whole sector was handed over to the private sector, it would be in a better position to deal with the landholders on case to case basis and pay compensation according to the site and condition of lands.

Meanwhile, a summary in this regard has been prepared which will be sent to the new CDA Chairman Tariq Mehmood, which will be tabled before the CDA board for decision.

Presently the acquisition of land for new sectors is done by the CDA and it pays the landholders both for the land and their built-up property.

Usually, the CDA announced awards (mode of compensation) of the land it intends to acquire but at the same time it dose not take possession of the same land and with the passage of time the number of landholders swells with additional construction.

The CDA is always ready to pay compensation of the land according to the award (mode of compensation) but due to increase in number of landholders and more construction on the acquired land, the landholders refuse to accept the award compelling the authority to set new terms and conditions for acquisition of land.

As a result of non-acquisition of land the CDA could not develop even a single sector for the last 21 years as F-11 was the last residential sector developed in 1987.

Few years ago the CDA took a decision that it would follow a formula of land acquisition first adopted by Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore under which one developed plot is given in place of four un-developed sectors. But this formula did not work in Islamabad because the main hurdle was compensation on built up property that increases with every passing day.