Cultivable, non-cultivable land to be treated equally in new CDA sectors
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—The Capital Development Authority CDA has decided to treat cultivable and non-cultivable land at par in land-sharing formula to acquire land for new residential sectors, a official of the Authority said Saturday.
He said CDA would acquire undeveloped land from the owners and after developing it the Authority would offer 25 per cent of the acquired land free of cost to them.
The Owner will be entitled to keep 25 percnet land or sell it at market rate. The formula has been approved in priciniple and it would be finalized at the next meeting of an inter-ministerial committee.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had set up the committee early this year to resolve issues related to land acquisition by CDA for the planned new sectors.
The committee is made up of Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Federal Minister for Housing and Works Syed Safwanullah and Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan.
The land-sharing formula has been worked out in accordance with the instructions of the inter-ministerial committee which desired that cultivable and non-cultivable land be acquired on the same terms.
According to the formula land owners would pay development charges to obtain possession of 25 percent developed land from CDA. In the past owners whose land was acquired were often involved in disputes with CDA on the ground that land was taken from them at low price and sold at a much higher price after development. Such problems would not arise as a reuslt of land-sharing formula, the CDA the official informed.