KARACHI, Dec 11: Construction of the country’s tallest building project – the IT Tower and Call Centre – has not started despite the fact an agreement for it was signed five months ago.
On July 18, the city government and a consortium of three international firms of Malaysia, India and the United Arab Emirates had signed an agreement to build a 46-storey building on a huge vacant plot adjacent to Civic Centre.
Well-placed sources in the city government told Dawn that so far the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) had not given approval to the building plan of the proposed IT Tower due to some technical hitches relating to the size of the plot with the total covered area shown in the plan.
Talking to Dawn, Chief Controller KBCA Mumtazur Rehman said the concept of the IT Tower project had been approved, and the KBCA was assessing the building plan, which would soon be approved accordingly. However, he was reluctant to share further details about the plan of the proposed project.
The sources said that the groundbreaking of the project might be delayed for another month as one of the major reasons behind the delay was the fact that the proposed site of the project was in use of the contracting company of the Hassan Square flyover, which had installed its batching plant there.
However, city nazim Mustafa Kamal disagreed that there was any delay in the IT Tower project and said a number of steps were required before carrying out the construction of such a gigantic project.
Till to date we have finalised every minute detail of the IT Tower project. The planning, designing and the concept work of the project has been done and it is our priority to perform the groundbreaking before the end of this month, he added.
He, however, maintained that the city government had allowed the contractor of the Hassan Square flyover project to temporarily use the plot reserved for the IT Tower till the completion of the flyover.
The Hassan Square flyover would be completed in a fortnight and then the contractor would disassemble his plant and vacate the plot for its groundbreaking, he added.
Mr Kamal said there was no hitch in the building plan of the IT Tower and it would soon be approved by the KBCA.
The project will be carried out at an estimated cost of $200 million, which will be expected to complete in two years. Having a total covered area of 2.5 million square feet, the building will have five floors for parking, five floors for offices of the city government and a 10,000-seat call centre.
The building, which was designed by a committee of renowned architects, will have four mini-cinemas of 200 seats each, an auditorium for 800 persons, a library, a health centre, guest rooms for 65 persons and a 50-room hotel besides other world-class facilities.