ISLAMABAD, April 9: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has sent a summary to the government seeking relaxation in Land Disposal Regulations (LDR) 1993 for regularization of the existing kutchi abadis in the federal capital, a CDA official said.

The official said if the summary was approved, these kutchi abadis would be regularized without auction.

“As soon as relaxation in provisions of the LDR is received, the process of upgradation of these abadis will be taken in hand. On regularization of kutchi abadis, environmental problems will be reduced,” he said.

Meanwhile, some of the inhabitants of the kutchi abadis, whose mud houses had been demolished by the CDA, blamed the deputy director, Kutchi Abadi Cell (KAC), Shafique Ahmed, for their miseries.

They said under the CDA policy, the authority was bound to provide shelter to those who had been living in these kutchi abadis before 1995. But, their houses were demolished on the pretext that they had shifted to these abadis after 1995, they claimed.

They accused Shafique Ahmed of taking bribe from those who had shifted to these kutchi abadis after 1995 and permitted them to live there in violation of the CDA rules.

They alleged that the people whose houses had collapsed in the torrential rains in 2001 had been allowed to live in tents, but were not allowed to construct houses in place of the collapsed structures.

When contacted, the KAC deputy director told Dawn that he had conducted a survey to find out for how long these people were living in these kutchi abadis.

He said only those houses were demolished that were constructed after 1995.

To overcome the problems of water and environmental pollution due to the existence of kutchi abadis, the CDA has prepared a programme for their upgradation and rehabilitation, the CDA spokesman said.