I AM a senior citizen over 90 years of age. I first came to Islamabad in 1975 and have been residing permanently here since 1994. Earlier, I was a member of some social platforms and committees dealing with environmental issues, and in this regard we had taken the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to the court regarding grant of permission to an American fast food chain in F-9 park without proper bidding.

However, one needs to have the moral courage to defend the CDA when the situation so demands, and to respond to unfair criticism. Recent rains have exposed damage to newly-constructed underpasses and overhead bridges, including sinkholes in freshly-laid roads.

While the CDA is being criticised for such disasters, the fact is that the entire blame in this regard rests with those who, for the sake of publicity and photo-ops, set unrealistic deadlines and denied sufficient time to the projects, as demanded by standard engineering practices becasue compression, compacting and curing, etc. required a certain time. CDA officials had no choice in the matter. They just had to whatever they had been directed to do.

Regrettably, the national media takes delight in joining the bandwagon in ‘exposing’ the CDA rather than digging deep for the real cause. As a senior citizen, I feel that if deadlines are to be given, if at all, these must be done in accordance with the engineering principles that have been laid down for any kind of civil work.

Vice-Admiral (retd) Ahmad Tasnim
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2025