No policy on allotment of plots for new mosques.

ISLAMABAD -- The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has failed to devise a policy for allotting plots for mosques resulting in piling up of applications.

Sources said for the last three years, the CDA has been sitting on files related to allotment of mosque plots. A group of people visited the CDA headquarters on Thursday to get an update on their application for allotment of a mosque plot but they were told that the civic agency had no policy to decide such cases.

They said currently around two dozen applications received from areas such as D-12, I-11 and I-14 are pending with the CDA.

A survey conducted in 2017 by CDA and the Islamabad Capital Territory administration found that there were 374 seminaries in the capital, most of which were unregistered and some even built on greenbelts.

'The issue regarding allotment of mosque plots remains undecided since 2017 but now we are going to take a policy decision,' CDA spokesperson Syed Safdar Ali told Dawn.

Applications piling up as CDA has not allocated plots for construction of mosques for the last three years

The sources said earlier the CDA used to allot mosque plots through the Auqaf Department but in 2017 the then chairman Sheikh Anser Aziz got a new policy finalised to avoid allotments to outsiders. Only people having permanent addresses in the capital were to be given a role in affairs of mosques.

But the proposed policy could not be taken up by the CDA board. In the sectors mentioned above where people have been living for many years...