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2,450 acres of land allocated for relocation of GHQ, confirms Defence Secretary
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Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters (GHQ) will soon be shifted from Rawalpindi to the federal capital Islamabad.
The federal government has allocated 2,450 acres of land to relocate the military headquarters, according to Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retd) Zamirul Hassan.
The project will affect more than 5000 families who will be relocated from sectors E-10, D-11 to undeveloped H-16 to pave way for the construction of new General Headquarters of Pakistan Army.
Pakistan government has approved the relocation of people from the proposed site of new GHQ as the army planned to start the construction work. The project will cost around Rs. 100 Billion.
On Thursday, the Senate standing committee held a meeting, chaired by Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed along with senators Hidayat Ullah, Atta ur Rehman, Muhammad Javed Abbasi, Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum, Sehar Kamran and Brig (retd) John Kenneth Williams.
Secretary defense, Lt Gen (retd) Zamir Ul Hassan, while briefing the standing committee of Defence, said that GHQ would be shifted to Islamabad. He added that 2,450 acres of land has been allocated for building a defence complex in Islamabad.
Due to the new project, thousands of people have to leave their ancestral lands and migrate to sector H-16. H sectors had already been declared sectors for public institutions, colleges, schools. Allocation of H sector for the residential purpose will be a violation of CDA’s master plan.
Secretary defense further said that Rs100 billion would be the total cost to build the defence complex and the money would be provided by the Pakistan Army but the cost has been increased by Rs30 billion and this amount will be collected by the sale of military land.
The project of shifting GHQ worth over Rs60bn had been inaugurated by then president and army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf in Sept 2004, but the work actually began in 2007.
Pakistan Army is now ready to kick off construction on the project which was shelved around October 2008 to 2009, at the instructions of then chief of army staff (COAS) Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, due to financial constraints.
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