| ISLAMABAD-A longstanding issue of the digitisation of property records in the Capital Development Authority has once again been put on back burner and a major component of the Digitisation of Property Records is excluded from the PC-I.
Earlier in the last week, a comprehensive PC-I amounting Rs.933 million for introducing multiple digital interventions in exciting systems of the CDA was prepared, however, same could not pave its way due to ongoing financial constraints in the civic authority.
Sources informed that the PC-I was the brainchild of newly appointed Member Information Technology Noman Khalid but he was conveyed that the scope of the project may be reduced as about one billion rupees could not be spared in the shrinking fiscal space. Reliable sources told the Nation that now a revised PC-I amounting Rs.200 million has been submitted for the approval, which will be placed before CDA’s Development Working Party.
However, in revised PC-I, a major and long standing issue of the digitisation of property records have been excluded and IT directorate preferred to spend money on cosmetic measures.
CDA had property records worth trillions of rupees and missing of property records have become very common in the Estate Wing. It is pertinent to mention here that the successive managements had also made similar announcements to digitise the property records in the past but same could not be materialised on one pretext or another.
When contacted, the CDA’s Deputy Director Public Relations Kamran Qurashi refuted the impression and said that digitalisation of record is a key priority, however, after doing internal analysis of the record CDA decided to introduce a standalone PC-1 to capture further elements of digitalisation.
He hoped that the separate PC-I for digitalisation would be introduced in coming days.
The revised PC-I includes revamping of CDA’s website by making it secure, user friendly and interactive for the citizens while to provide ease to the citizens an online portal would also be established for Property Allotment and Transfer. Furthermore, an Online Complaint Management System would be established that would allow consumers to approach CDA electronically for redressal of their issues.
On the other side, once completed, the project will enable citizens for online payments of CDA i.e. Property Tax, Water and Allied Charges, Annual Ground Rent (AGR), Lease Extension and others.
Meanwhile, the IT wing also prepared two other PC-Is including Deployment of Centrally Managed Wi-Fi System at CDA Headquarter that would be completed in next 11 months with an estimated cost of Rs. 94 million and an online system for the approval of building plans of the residential and commercial plots.
The Wi-Fi project will establish a centrally managed secure Wi-Fi system for a reliable communication infrastructure to share internet services, access emails and use various software applications.
This infrastructure will act as backup to existing 18 years old wired communication which will be replaced in phase-ll. |
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