ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: The much-hyped Margalla Avenue road project to connect sector D-12 with the Grand Trunk (GT) road has been halted mid-way as the capital’s civic agency finds itself with no funds to sustain it.

Critics compare the fate of the project with other initiatives started solely on political pressure.

The Margalla Avenue project was launched with great fanfare on May 24 and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) had published special supplements on its ground-breaking ceremony, which was attended by former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. Construction began full swing in June 2012.

According to a planning wing official, the 9-kilometer-long road would have cost Rs1.2billion.

“The authority has blocked the payment to the contractor mainly because its accounts are empty, and the politically motivated project of the Pakistan People’s Party government is in doldrums,” added the planning wing official.

Similarly, a financial wing official commented: “A number of ongoing CDA development projects are already in limbo, such as the Zero Point Interchange and the Park Enclave housing scheme, because of limited funds.”

“We were asked by the CDA board to divert funds to the new projects ignoring the fact that money was diverted from development project of Park Enclave and number of other accounting heads,” added the financial wing official.

During his two-year-long stint at CDA, former chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi had consistently refused to initiate the project.

Mr Elahi, according to a CDA board member, was against the project since he believed that no plan was in place over the structures which would be developed after the completion of the new avenue.

“How can you establish a new road without any Environmental Impact Assessment report and proper planning, since land mafia and encroachers will establish their structures and Margalla belt’s beauty will be ruined?” maintained the official.

Indeed, at a place, the road runs next to a barren piece of land that is said to have been bought by a number of political personalities and other affluent people.

However, soon after the induction of the then new chairman Farkhand Iqbal, who took the reins from Mr Elahi in December 2011, the project was initiated by the outgoing chairman.

It is also pertinent to mention that the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) has stressed in the recent October report that work on the construction of the Margalla Avenue was being carried out in violation of section 12 of the Environment Protection Act 1997.

The construction, explained an estate wing official, was started from both ends by the authority to quickly complete the project and limit public ire.

Other than Pak-EPA, the Punjab government has also raised questions as it claims that the project is being established on land leased by it in 1960 to the federal government. The land was originally reserved for forest land.

“The Punjab government had leased Margalla Reserve Forest land measuring 11,870 acres to CDA, under an agreement for 20 years. The lease agreement was signed between secretary agriculture West Pakistan and Horticulture Directorate CDA during 1960s. The lease expired in 1991,” claimed a land directorate official.

“Since then CDA land and estate directorates have never shared any record of the ownership of the land with CDA board members, which raises doubts over the hurried initiation of the project,” he commented.

However, when Dawn approached the spokesman for CDA Ramzan Sajid over the issue, he claimed that the project had been slowed down and not blocked.

“It’s because of financial issues. The project is very much in progress,” insisted the spokesman.

Mr Sajid dismissed all comments about the project being politically motivated, and described it as a need of the hour to decrease the volume of traffic entering from the Kashmir Highway.

The spokesman claimed that the environmental issue would be taken up, but he was unable to justify how the environmental issue would be resolved, since the project had been started without any EIA or any regulations over the construction of buildings, which would be developed alongside the Margalla Avenue.