ISLAMABAD: A senior PPP leader and chairperson of the National Assembly’s standing committee on law and justice has been found involved in spending millions of rupees of her development fund to enhance the commercial value of her property in the suburbs of the federal capital. Parliamentarians are supposed to spend their development funds for the betterment of people of their areas but it appears that whosoever gets a chance, or got a chance during the last more than four years, he ‘worked hard’ to improve his own life and gathered money for betterment of his own generations. Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry (Multan) has spent over Rs 125 million of the development funds to build a bridge in the federal capital, which has enhanced the value of her land adjacent to it. When approached for comments the MNA admitted that the bridge was adjacent to her land. She said she has given over one kanal of her land to construct the road so as to ease the traffic flow. She said that the design of the bridge was such that it could not be constructed at any other point that was why she gave her own land for completion of the project. “The bridge is open for traffic and there is no issue at all”, said Begum Nasim Akhtar when asked about bridge construction on her land and the issues with her relatives. She added, “I don’t know what you want to dig out of it”. Documents reveal that Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry, elected on reserved seat from Multan (NA-300) and chairperson National Assembly’s standing committee on law and justice, identified a project of construction of PCC Road and a bridge over River Korang to connect Phulgran village (Bhara Kahu) to main Murree Road and the PC-1 of the project was estimated at Rs125.232 million. The sources told The News that the entire development scheme turned out to be an exercise to enhance the value of land owned by the MNA and her family adjacent to the bridge. The sources said that before the
construction of the bridge, the land’s worth was nominal because the road ended at the River Korang but now its price has shot up because of easy access for the population living beyond River Korang to Murree Road. The family feud surfaced when the bridge was completed and one of the relatives of Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry refused to let her construct road on his piece of land and the MNA had to give her own land for the construction of road joining the bridge. The entire Islamabad administration was on the move during the last few months when construction work on the said “project” was halted after a relative of the MNA got a stay order from the court. The sources said that Begum Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry and her scions and relatives own around 25 kanals of land in the area and the bridge was constructed solely for the purpose of improving access to the land and to enhance its market value.
