Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Tariq Mehmood Khan has said expansion of Marghazar Zoo will be completed by 2011 with an estimated cost of Rs 1.42 billion. Talking to media during his visit to the zoo on Wednesday, Tariq Mehmmod said that the civic body would make all out effort to complete the project within the stipulated period.
He directed the concerned department to increase the number of wheelchairs from three to 10 for disabled persons and provide facilities to senior citizens, coming to visit the zoo.
He also issued directives to construct a small hall as education centre, where basic information/education regarding zoo and wildlife would be provided to the visitors. Replying to a query regarding the blacklisting of consultancy firm, ECIL, which designed the Zero Point Interchange project for the National Highway Authority (NHA), he said that the authority would follow the directives of Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
Answering a question about the opening of the Faisal Avenue, the CDA chairman said that it would be opened for the general public on March 23. He said that a committee had been constituted to monitor the illegal encroachment in capital and people would get rid of it within three months.
Talking about the financial crunch facing by the CDA, he said that the authority would overcome it soon. Answering another question about the shifting of commercial areas from the residential areas in the capital, he said that total 700 buildings were found involved in this business, of which 80 plots were cancelled and some of the cases were in the court. He said that the authority was trying to compensate the people running their businesses in the residential areas by providing them a separate commercial area. Hopefully, he said, within 90 days the expansion of the commercial area would be completed.
He informed the media that the CDA had formulated a task force, comprising senior officials of the authority to keep the capital clean. The campaign had been successfully started from F-10 sector and would achieve its target within three months. Earlier, briefing the CDA chairman CDA and the media about expansion project of the zoo, Director of zoo Raja Muhammad Javed said that currently the total area of the zoo was 21 acres, while it would be extended to 80 acres after expansion.
"It is a three-year expansion project, started in 2008. The PC-I of the project was approved by the Cabinet on March 2008 and its environment impact assessment (EIA) report was submitted to Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) on July 16, 2008," he said.
Of the total cost of the project of Rs 1.42 billion, he said, Rs 1.14 billion would be spent on civil work, Rs 52.25 million on buying machinery, Rs 21.50 million on the establishment of the zoo, Rs 23.34 million on training and management of zoo staff and Rs 156 million on purchasing animals, respectively. However Rs 31.79 million was the consultancy fee of the project, he added.
The project is designed and supervised by Unicon Consulting, Lahore, in affiliation with V & L Zoo Architect, South Africa. The Director of zoo said that currently there were 66 species in the zoo, of which 44 were birds, 20 animals and two reptiles.
He denied increase in mortality rate of animals and birds in the zoo in the recent years, saying that in 2004, the mortality rate of animals was 22 percent and birds was 11 percent, which reduced in 2008 with 14 percent animals and four percent birds. However, in 2007, there was a slight increase in the mortality rate of the birds due to bird flu. CDA member, Environment, Mazhar Hussain; Director of Wildlife Management, CDA, Rawal Khan Maitla; Director, Public Relations and other senior officials of the civic body were also present on the occasion.
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