CDA to hold special board meeting on stalled Nilor Heights project

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority has decided to work out a plan to revive the stalled multibillion-rupee Nilor Heights Apartments project, with CDA Chairman retired Lt Sohail Ashraf convening a special board meeting to decide its future as the partially completed structure continues to deteriorate.

According to a source, the chairman recently expressed concern over the condition of the project and directed that the CDA board meet at the earliest to determine how the scheme should be used in the authority’s larger interest. The source said the chairman also asked that professional firms be consulted before a final course of action is chosen.

The move comes after the federal cabinet approved a CDA summary removing the Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority from the project. A CDA officer said the authority will now determine the project’s future itself and that a public-private partnership is one of the likely options.

The housing scheme was launched in 2021 and was supposed to be completed within 24 months, by June 30, 2023. The project was initiated on CDA land and with CDA funding for its then partner, NPHDA, which was to share the cost and arrange delivery of apartments to its members. However, NPHDA did not pay any amount to the CDA, resulting in construction being stopped after the grey structure of 60 blocks had been completed.

Following the cabinet decision ending NPHDA’s role, the civic agency has been authorised to execute the scheme independently. Another CDA official said there was an urgent need to restart the development because the structure was decaying and the authority had already spent billions of rupees on it in addition to providing land. The official said the matter would be placed before the CDA board and added that there was a strong possibility the revival would be pursued through a public-private partnership model.

Audit observations and project scope

Federal auditors had also flagged the scheme in their 2024-25 report. The PC-I for construction of 3,960 apartments at Rs15,307.174 million had been approved, while total releases of Rs8,295.190 million had been made against an approved cost of Rs13,270.097 million up to June 30, 2024, during 2021 to 2023-24, which it said was 62 per cent of the approved cost.

The audit report stated that if the authority had completed the project within the implementation period of the approved PC-I, it could have secured the benefit or revenue of Rs14 billion envisaged in the plan. NPHDA had not met its financial obligations, delaying the expected benefits of the project.

The project has two phases. In the first, 2,400 apartments of 779 square feet each were built, with only finishing work remaining. Under that phase, the CDA constructed 2,400 apartments in 60 ground-plus-four-storey blocks. The scheme was initially launched in 2021 as the Farash Town apartment scheme before later being renamed the Nilore Height Project.

These 2,400 apartments were originally intended for low-income groups. Under the initial plan, 2,000 apartments were to be handed over to NPHDA for allotment onward, while 400 were meant for slum dwellers in city areas. In the second phase, where foundation work had begun before construction was halted, the CDA planned to build 1,876 apartments of different sizes, up to 1,441 square feet, for commercial auction.

A few years ago, the CDA also decided to auction 2,000 apartments to overseas Pakistanis at $30,000 per apartment. It issued an advertisement and received 6,000 applications, but the balloting scheduled for May 2023 did not take place because of litigation. Earlier, NPHDA had also held a balloting process to allot the under-construction apartments to people from low-income groups.