The capital is well known
as a planned city. But there seems to be a lot going on
in a rather unplanned manner.
The most recent example
is the new monument-cum-fountain that came up recently
at a corner of the intersection of Faisal Avenue and Jinnah
Avenue. Islamabadites hardly had time to sink in its beauty
(it's quite a majestic scene at night) when they were
told that the monument will have to be removed to make
way for an underpass being planned for that intersection.
Removing or shifting a
Rs3.8 million monument (and one in which the CDA is reportedly
bound by agreement to keep at the same place for 10 years!)
is going to incur extra costs unnecessarily. Where were
the "planners" when approval for the monument
was being given? The fact that another fountain already
exists in the same area hardly 50 metres away speaks volumes
about the planning or the lack of it in the installation
of the monument.
An earlier episode of ill-planning
pertains to the disastrous plantation of 260 date palms
along the major arteries of the city - a project which
cost Rs2.6 million - and their removal hardly two months
later because they could not withstand the cold temperatures
in the capital. Surely we don't need "planners"
to tell us that date palms can only survive in warmer
climates! An official report on the fiasco is being tabled
in the Senate.
These two episodes show
how insistent CDA can be in implementing certain "pet"
projects regardless of their feasibility (economic, environmental
and social). Fortunately two other much more expensive
projects, viz., the Rs210 million safari train project
at Shakarparian and the chairlift project on the Margallas,
the feasibility of which had been openly questioned, were
recently shelved in time before they were executed.
In fact, a plethora of
development projects (e.g., science city, tunnel through
the Margallas, mini-Oxford city, several underpasses,
etc.) are being announced left and right but many Islamabadites
wonder if all these projects are being processed with
proper planning, coordination and comprehensive feasibility
studies being first undertaken.
Take for instance, the
recently announced intended establishment of a new industrial
estate. The old existing industrial estate in I-9 and
I-10 sectors has turned out to be an environmental disaster,
although it was supposed to have been a "planned"
one.
It is located too close
to residential areas, causing the whole area to be enveloped
in a thick cloud of smoke, sometimes black and sometimes
white, emitted by factories which are not being taken
to task for causing this hazardous air pollution. Who
can tell whether the new "planned" industrial
estate will not cause similar kinds of "unforeseen"
problems in future?
If this is the state of
"planning" that has been going on within the
better looked after sectoral area of Islamabad (zone I
and II), one can imagine the state of affairs in the non-sectoral
area (zone IV and V) located in the eastern part of the
city. (Zone III comprises the Margalla Hills National
Park and other ranges and forest areas falling between
Margalla Hills and north of Murree Road.)
Only last month it was
reported that a London-based consultant firm had been
awarded the contract to prepare a new master plan for
Islamabad, with special focus on zone IV. The latter comprises
Islamabad Park and the rural periphery wedged between
Murree Road towards the north and Lehtrar Road towards
the south, extending beyond Simly Road upto the ICT limits
in the northeast (excluding the Margalla Hills National
Park and Rawal Lake). But this master plan revision exercise
is being done decades late.
The Greek architects who
prepared Islamabad's original master plan in 1960 had
only designed the planning for a limited area of the city,
viz., the existing sectoral areas. A revision of the Islamabad
master plan was done in the 1980s but it did not lay out
the design plans for the non-sectoral areas.
According to the Islamabad
Capital Territory Zoning Regulation 1992, in which the
capital city was divided into five zones, the non-sectoral
zones were supposed to be "master- planned"
and the existing urban sprawl in these areas organized
into planned urban development with housing schemes being
encouraged. But unplanned construction and slums seem
to be the only kind of development that has mostly been
taking place in these zones.
According to a CDA website,
the total ICT area is 906 square kilometres. This, according
to the website, includes Islamabad Proper, Islamabad Park
and Islamabad Rural Areas - an area equivalent to the
five marked zones of the ICT. But the same website says
that the "specified area" of Islamabad is 3,626
square kilometres! This means that the ICT actually consists
of 2,720 square kilometres more of so far un-zoned and
undeveloped territory.
However, some housing schemes,
e.g., those near the site of the yet-to-be constructed
new Islamabad Airport, have already started coming up
in these areas. Does this mean that all these "unplanned"
construction will simply be "regularized" whenever
the master plans for this part of the capital territory
are drawn up?
Logically speaking, master
plans for the non-sectoral areas in zone IV and V should
have been prepared when the land was undeveloped, not
now when all sorts of unplanned construction and housing
projects, including even a whole new town, Bhara Kahu,
have sprouted up. Incorporating and regularizing all this
"unplanned" construction (which is reported
to comprise some 70,000 to 80,000 acres in zone IV alone)
into the new master plan that is expected to be completed
soon cannot be passed off as "planned" development.
Only the sectoral zones
of Islamabad city, as laid out by the Greek architects
in 1960, exemplifies any sort of planned development.
It is quite clear that no new development design plans
beyond the sectoral areas have been drawn up since then
and Islamabad seems to be growing as unplanned as any
other city in the country.
