Two lakes, an international university, an ultra-modern hospital, own sources of power and drinking water and with an infrastructure costing around Rs 100 billion, the upcoming mega residential-cum-commercial project of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) – DHA City Karachi (DCK) – promises to be dream location for building a new house.
At the curtain raising ceremony of DCK organised by the DHA to provide updates about the project and to unfold the related development projects, DHA Karachi Administrator Brig Aamer Raza Qureshi, DCK Project Director Brig (retd) Muhammad Rafique, and lead consultants of the project, Osmani and Company’s Chairman Inam Ahmed Osmani, Prof EC Kondylis, Asim I Osmani and Arif Inam Osmani highlighted the salient features of the project.
Commander 5 Corps Karachi and DHA Executive Board President General Muhammad Zahirul Islam was the chief guest on occasion.
Talking about the details of the mega project, the DHA administrator said the DCK is located on the Karachi-Hyderabad Super Highway at the eastern border of Karachi, and borders Thatta district in the south and Jamshoro district in the east. “The scheme is situated at a distance of 56-km from the core area of Karachi; 35 km from the airport and is spread over 11,640 acres of land,” he said.
“In the coming years, the DCK can emerge as the largest, most organised, secure and a modern city, having all basic amenities and recreational facilities,” Qureshi said. “The DHA is in the process to acquire more land adjacent to the project with the aim of expanding the project by 2.5 times than its existing size.”
The DHA administrator said that out of the total of 48,521 plots, around 25,143 plots have already been sold and the remaining 23,378 plots will be offered for sale in the next phase. “Karachi does not have the required space now for infrastructure, and that is why the DHA selected the current location to establish DCK,” he added.
Speaking on the occasion, the Osmani and Company chairman said that the DCK project will be truly a trendsetter in providing modern communal facilities to its residents and visitors. “We are proud to be the lead consultants of the project and working with two renowned international consulting firms as our associates for completing the project successfully.”
A lead consultant of the project, Prof Kondylis, said the infrastructure of the city will be developed at an estimated cost of Rs 100 billion ($1.1 billion).
“Two lakes, a golf club, an international university, 64 schools, a modern hospital with 1,000-bed capacity, recreational parks and several shopping centres would be established along with the thousands of residences,” he pointed out. “Trams, popularly known as street cars, will also be introduced in the DCK to provide transportation facilities to the city’s residents and visitors.”
He was of the view that students from different countries will come to Karachi to study in the university proposed at the DCK, while patients from many countries would also give preference to get treatment at the hospital.
“The project has been designed after studying the structure of Islamabad and some other important cities of the world,” Prof Kondylis said.
DCK Project Director Brig (retd) Muhammad Rafique informed the audience that a four-tier strategy had been evolved to initiate and accomplish the project.
“In 2011-12, the work to develop infrastructure will be started and from the year 2012-15, a short-term plan and from 2015-2020, a medium term will be implemented to continue development programmes,” he said. “From 2020-30, a long-term plan will be put in place to accomplish the task of development of the city.”
“It is our target to make the DCK liveable by 2015,” the DCK project director said. “By the year 2030, the new city will emerge as a complete and a modern city of Pakistan.”
Head of consultants, Arif Inam Osmani, said the DCK will have its own 500 megawatt power plant, solar and wind energy projects, transport, schools, shopping centres and all social facilities.
“Around 35-40 tube wells will be installed to produce quality water for drinking purposes at DCK,” he said. “During test drilling of tube wells, experts have found good availability of quality ground water in the area that can be supplied to the DCK residents.”
