By Asad Cheema
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has lauded the decisions of CDA Board for accepting most of its demands with regard to reducing additional storey charges in markets, simplification of lease renewal procedure and amendment in industrial building bye-laws. It thanked Amir Ali Ahmed Chairman and all members of CDA for taking business friendly decisions that would greatly facilitate in promoting business activities.
Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that a delegation ICCI had recently held a comprehensive meeting with the Chairman CDA and his team in which demands were made for reducing additional storey charges, simplifying lease renewal procedures and allowing multiple trades on industrial plots. He said that Chairman CDA had assured to place these demands of ICCI before the CDA Board for approval. He said that CDA Board has approved most of the proposals of ICCI, which was laudable. He further demanded that the CDA should now issue notifications of the decisions made by the CDA Board for their implementation, which would facilitate in promoting business activities.
Muhammad Ahmed Waheed said that at the request of ICCI, the CDA had allowed construction of additional storey in the markets but their charges were made so high that it was impossible to build additional storey. He said that on the demand of ICCI, the CDA Board has now reduced the charges for construction of additional floor by 50 percent, which was commendable. He said that ICCI has been calling upon the CDA since long for allowing multiple trades on industrial plots including information technology and now the CDA Board has allowed multiple trades on these plots including IT which will boost industrial activity in the region and stabilize the economy.
The ICCI President said that for the last several years, the business community had been facing serious problems in renewal of leases for commercial and industrial plots as the CDA had made this process very complicated. However, at the proposal of ICCI, the CDA Board has decided to fix Rs.100,000 per canal for renewal of lease of industrial plots which will solve this long standing problem. He said that according to the new decision of the Board, CDA would now charge according to the size of plots instead of the size of the buildings and apartments constructed on land, which would eliminate many complications and boost business activities.
Muhammad Ahmed Waheed said that the new decisions of the CDA Board would increase the construction activities in Islamabad which would boost the business of more than 40 other allied industries. He demanded that the CDA should issue notification of new decisions of its Board as soon as possible so that there would be no difficulties in their implementation and business activities would flourish leading to creation of multiple benefits to the economy.
