By Adnan Rafique
ISLAMABAD: President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Muhammad Ahmed Waheed has said that Prime Minister Imran Khan announced an attractive package for construction industry to boost the economy, however, CDA has not taken any steps to revise its construction laws in line with the requirements of the construction industry package and this situation could create problems for construction activities in Islamabad.
Therefore, he stressed that CDA should revise its building byelaws to facilitate the construction sector and notify them as soon as possible so that construction and business activities could flourish in the federal capital. Muhammad Ahmad Waheed said that about 4 years ago, CDA Board had approved revised industrial building byelaws which addressed height of industrial buildings and allowed multi businesses on industrial plots, but CDA has not notified them as yet due to which industrial growth in Islamabad was stagnant. He urged that CDA should notify the approved amended industrial building byelaws to facilitate the industrial development in the capital.
He further said that lease of many industrial and commercial plots in Islamabad was pending due to complicated lease renewal process of CDA. Due to this situation not only business activities were suffering, CDA was also losing revenue of billions of rupees in the form of lease renewal charges. He emphasized that CDA should streamline lease renewal process and renew all pending leases of industrial and commercial plots. He said without renewal of leases, commercial and industrial establishments were not able to avail the financing facility of banks for expansion and growth.
The ICCI President said that after depositing building map for construction projects, one has to wait for 2-3 years for its approval due to which development of the federal capital was very slow. He said that due to such difficult procedures, domestic and foreign investors were feeling no incentive to invest in construction projects in the federal capital. He stressed that CDA should define timelines for every activity and approve all pending maps of industrial and commercial buildings in order to spur the construction activity in the federal capital.
