CDA starts work on Park Enclave project without EIA

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has started development work on the Park Enclave housing project in Zone-IV without conducting environmental impact assessment (EIA).
“The environmental impact assessment is the process of assessing the environmental impacts of a project and identifying options to minimise environmental damage. The main purpose of the EIA is to inform decision makers of the likely impacts of a proposal before a decision is made, but the civic body started the work on Park Enclave, without conducting the required assessment,” a source told Pakistan Today on Monday.
He said the environmental impact assessment provides an opportunity to the planners to identify key issues and stakeholders in the early stage of the project so that potentially adverse impacts could be addressed before the final decision is made. The Park Enclave is a mega project and it was the prime responsibility of the CDA high-ups to conduct the environmental impact assessment before initiating the development work on it, he opined.
He held that the environmental impact assessment mainly focuses on the proposed physical developments such as highways, power stations, water resource projects and large-scale industrial facilities. The Park Enclave consists of 700 houses in phase-I and another 600 houses in phase–II, equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities. It is located near Park Road and Chak Shahzad at its intersection with Kurri Road, he added.
Under phase-I, about 700 houses will be built. The total area of the city is 906sq km. Of the five main zones of the city, zone IV covers the largest area of about 70,000 acres. The most populated zone in Islamabad is zone-I.
The project also consists of a mosque, a school, a club having a swimming pool, squash courts, tennis courts and badminton courts. The housing scheme has parks, a children play land, an open air restaurant around the lake with a walking track, cricket & football grounds, modern shopping malls and modern landscaping.
It would also be equipped with telecom, TV and Internet facilities for all types of communication and a telephone network with Internal free access, high speed games for children, distance learning for homework from community school, digital library, books, and videos, communication media for traffic control system and security system.