ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat on Thursday took the Capital Development Authority (CDA) officials to task for ignoring some basic issues relating to the Metro Bus Project.

The senators while taking up the project, said it would not only cause the environmental degradation in Islamabad but violate the capital city master plan.

The committee, however, constituted a sub-committee, which will look into the project thoroughly.

`We do need mega projects to ease traffic, but not at the cost of environment and breach of authority,` the chairperson of the Committee Senator Kulsum Parveen said.

Though the CDA has negligible role in the project, as Nespak is the consultant and Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) the project director, the CDA officials had to face `the music` at the committee meeting.

The senators came hard on the CDA officials with a barrage of questions and the most serious one was related to finalisation of the design.

The CDA officials were briefing the members of the senate standing committee.

Senator Kamil Ali Agha said: `How everything is going too fast without the approval of any competent authority?` The sarcastic input by Senator Kamil Ali Agha, Senator Saifullah Bangash and Senator Dr Saeeda Iqbal over the briefing left the attendants of the meeting including the CDA officials smiling.`Why the RDA is executing the project in Islamabad despite legal hitches, Senator Dr Saeeda Iqbal asked.

The response to most of the questions by the CDA officials was either smiles or their turning back to the presentation over the metro bus service.

The senators asked the CDA officials why they moved ahead with the project when the Central Development Working (CDWP) linked the execution of the project with environmental assessment report by Environment Protection Agency (EPA).

They said even Ecnec did not wait for the `report` and approved the project by holding a special meeting.

The CDA chairman, Maroof Afzal, said an estimated 150,000 people commuted daily between Secretariat and other parts of Islamabad.

At this Senator Kamil Ali Agha questioned the authenticity of the figure and asked Mr Afzal: `Are you sure that such a large number of people will shift to this bus service.

The only member who supported the project was Senator Begum Najma Hameed, but she failed to provide any logical answers to the questions raised by the fellow senators.

Finally, it was decided that a sub-committee headed by Senator Kamil Ali Agha would obtain the answers to ambiguous questions about the project.

Other members of the committee are senators Talah Mehmood, Dr Saeeda Iqbal and Najma Hameed.

The committee also took notice of gross violations by the private sector housing societies in Islamabad and demanded that the CDA should provide a comprehensive report regarding the favours it allegedly showered on certain builders and housing societies in the next meeting.