ISLAMABAD, Nov 14: The new management of the Capital Development Authority has so far been unable to resuscitate the authority’s exhaustive revenues, thanks to red tape.

Except for some cosmetic measures, the new management, which took up the reins of the authority on October 3, is yet to come up with concrete steps to generate revenue for CDA.

A senior official of the CDA’s finance wing on condition of anonymity said the conversion of over 700 acres of farmland in Sihala into industrial one alone could generate over Rs2 billion.

The owners of these agro farms want to set up businesses like ice factories, food and beverages and pharmaceutical industries, he said and added: “But a summary prepared by the CDA’s planning wing is yet to receive its board of directors’ consent.”

In its summary, the planning wing claimed that the land conversion would not disturb its master plan, an official of the planning wing said adding instead, it would generate funds.

According to the summary, prepared some two months back, around 67 owners will pay conversion fee of the plots to the authority as the agro farm lands are lying idle, he said without sharing his name.

He said in 1980’s the authority had allotted the land for establishment of poultry and vegetable farms but the owners could not utilise it up to their potential because of CDA’s poor land use plan.

An environment wing officer said that water was also scarce in the area as water table was as low as 200 feet so the land was not fit for agro farming.

The investors are also reluctant to invest in poultry farming because of its being unfeasible.

The environment wing official of the authority added: “The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority has advised the investors to establish poultry farms at a distance of one kilometer to keep check on virus from traveling to each others farms.”

According to the expert, poultry farms set up within one kilometer radius are vulnerable to attracting the virus.

“If we set up the farms at one kilometer distance, we will be able to set up only one farm at our land, rendering our investment unviable,” Mustaqeem Ahmed (name changed), a land owner in the area, told Dawn.

“We have requested the authority to bail us out from this horrible situation since all our invested money is stuck there for decades. The CDA does have alternative business plans but it is not willing to help the agro farm owners because no big shot is holding farm there,” Mustaqeem said.

He said they had been meeting the successive CDA managements for the last eight years but to no avail.

“Some two months back, a summary was moved at last but it again failed to get the attention of the CDA board,” claimed the owner.

The spokesman for the authority, Ramzan Sajid, said a number of summaries have been pending at the board level for the last several years which will and gradually be taken up by the current chairman Syed Tahir Shahbaz .”

The spokesman claimed that any revenue scheme which was beneficial for the CDA would positively be taken up by the authority’s board and “competent authority will review such proposals and approve it after following all the rules and regulations.”

Mr Sajid said that authority’s new management was always ready to facilitate investors and had never created troubles for them.

The spokesman did not give any timeframe for the reconsideration of the proposal.