‘Ongoing CDA projects to be completed on priority’

Islamabad : Chairman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Captain (r) Muhammad Usman has said all the ongoing development projects in Islamabad will be completed on priority basis.

Talking informally to newsmen, he said that day and night development activity was going at sites of all the projects for which the previous management had already set completion deadlines. He also pointed out that deadlines were set in a way that was difficult to meet the time-frame for completion of projects. The development authority is currently undertaking rehabilitation and expansion of IJ Principal Road, Islamabad Expressway, extension of Margalla Avenue and other projects.

Captain (r) Usman as the Parliament already okayed Islamabad Food Authority, now he would actively work on the same. “I have already headed Punjab Food Authority and it will be my desire that the federal capital should also have a food authority in the shortest possible time,” he said.

The CDA chairman who is also Chief Commissioner of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) said he was not in favour of procuring machinery for cleanliness purposes as in future maintenance of machinery would be heavy burden on the authority.

He said that all such services like cleanliness would be outsourced to private parties and they would be responsible to accomplish the task. He said at the time of finalising Islamabad’s master plan, two main aspects including sufficient space for vehicles parking and filth dumping sites were not kept in view. At present, he said the authority is working on five parking plazas while proper dumping site sufficient for next 25 to 30 years would be selected outside the city along administration of adjoining districts.