ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: Development activities in Islamabad have not commenced in the current fiscal year as the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has yet not prepared its Annual Works Programme (AWP), a source in the CDA told Dawn on Sunday.

The source said the authority had been announcing its AWP annually since its existence to chalk out development schemes in the capital. He said the CDA's member engineering, Brig Ghulam Akbar Bukhari, was responsible for not preparing the AWP as he wanted to introduce a new system for uplift projects in the authority.

Under the new system, the source said, the CDA's engineering wing had decided to initiate a few development projects which could be completed within one year's time. However, there was a previous practice in the CDA that many uplift projects were commissioned at the same time under the AWP and there was no bar that these projects had to be completed within one year period, the source said.

He said the CDA allocated development funds amounting to over Rs2 billion for the current fiscal year in its annual budget, but a very meagre chunk had so far been utilized for development plans.

The source said the AWP covered both minor and major development plans including construction and re-carpeting of street/roads, construction of retaining walls, footpaths, installation of street-lights, development of new sectors, improvement of parks, sewerage and water supply systems.

All projects mentioned in the AWP were completed by the CDA with its own resources. However, some of the mega-development projects were commissioned under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

The new system introduced by member engineering could not become successful as it failed to redress public problems, a senior CDA official said. He said the number of complaints regarding unavailability of civic amenities had increased manifold due to the absence of AWP.

"Under the new system, we concentrate only on a few projects and focus on them till their completion. But, at the same time we have to ignore a number of other uplift works and public complaints because of no AWP," he added.

Responding to a question, the official agreed that development activities in Islamabad had almost stopped and no improvement was seen in the capital in terms of development and provision of better civic facilities.