Islamabad Bought a Highway Strip in 1967. Now It Wants to Sell It for Billions.

For nearly six decades, a 16-kilometer ribbon of land along the Grand Trunk Road belonged to Islamabad's Capital Development Authority mostly on paper. On the ground, it belonged to whoever got there first.

Petrol pumps went up on it. So did roadside restaurants, workshops, bus stands and depots for bricks and steel. Near Tarnol, on the capital's western edge, dealers in heavy construction machinery still park fleets of excavators on the land and rent them out to sites as far away as Murree, Kashmir and Taxila.

Now the authority, known as the C.D.A., wants the land back, and it has put a striking number on it. Officials estimate that a planned commercial area on the strip could raise more than 500 billion rupees if it is properly planned, developed and sold. That would be more than three times the authority's record budget of 152 billion rupees for the current fiscal year.

The plan is still on the drawing board. There is no launch date, no layout and no price list. But for the people who work, trade and rent along one of the busiest approaches to the capital, the message is already clear: the buildings on this land are coming down first.

Officials say more than 100 permanent buildings on the strip have been marked for demolition, and that the authority draws no line between temporary and permanent encroachments. Each will be razed after due process, they say, before the scheme is launched.

The C.D.A. acquired 3,550 kanals, about 444 acres, in 1967. The land is a 200-foot band on each side of the road, running from EME College to Nicholson Monument, the colonial-era obelisk at Margalla Pass. The road itself belongs to the National Highway Authority. The bands beside it belong to the C.D.A.

For most of the years since, the authority did little to defend them. Serious enforcement began only in 2025, after the Prime Minister's Office intervened and the C.D.A., the capital administration and the highway authority began marking their shared boundary. That August, the C.D.A. said it had demolished 578 structures along the stretch and cleared more than 95 percent of the encroachments.

That claim covered mostly the easier targets: kiosks, sheds, boundary walls and signboards. The permanent buildings were left for later. Later, it appears, is now.

Cleared land also fills up again quickly. Machinery dealers were removed from Tarnol in November 2025. In June, the capital administration detained 29 people for parking heavy vehicles and storing materials on C.D.A. land in the same area. By this month, the dealers were back.

The push is coming from the top. The C.D.A. chairman, Sohail Ashraf, has led several meetings on the scheme and pressed departments to finish their work quickly. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has backed the authority's campaign to retrieve state land across Islamabad. In May, he told the National Assembly that the C.D.A. had recovered 74 acres along the Grand Trunk Road at Tarnol alone.

The design is with a four-member committee formed by Ijaz Ahmad Sheikh, the director general for spatial planning, and supervised by Ali Abdullah, a deputy director general for architecture. Mr. Sheikh knows the corridor well. As the authority's director of urban planning in 2025, he oversaw the boundary survey with the highway authority.

Officials say the land will be released in phases rather than all at once. They also see an early opportunity. The highway authority is adding land along the road, which officials expect to create immediate demand for fuel-station sites on the C.D.A.'s side of the line.

The estimate rests on simple arithmetic, and Milkiyat.com reran it.

Officials say about 2,000 of the 3,550 kanals would be usable once planning needs are met. Their calculation assumes a minimum price of 750,000 rupees a square yard and 650 square yards to a kanal, which works out to nearly 500 million rupees a kanal.

Across 2,000 kanals, that comes not to 500 billion rupees but to about 975 billion.

The unit itself is unusual. A kanal in Islamabad's plot market is usually 500 square yards; the revenue kanal in land records is 605. Neither is 650. Even on the smallest of those measures, the officials' own inputs produce 750 billion rupees.

That makes the headline estimate look cautious rather than inflated, and it moves the real question elsewhere: how much land the authority can actually sell. Not every usable kanal becomes a plot once roads, parking and setbacks are drawn in. To reach 500 billion rupees at the stated minimum price, the C.D.A. would have to sell between 1,100 and 1,330 kanals of finished plots, or 55 to 67 percent of the usable land. Sell less, or sell cheaper, and the number falls away.

For now, there is nothing to buy. The C.D.A. has announced no layout, no plot sizes and no method of sale, and it normally sells commercial land through public auctions it advertises itself. Any "file" or pre-launch booking being offered for a Grand Trunk Road scheme today does not come from the authority.

The sharper risk falls on those already on the corridor. Anyone buying or renting a shop, plaza unit or plot fronting the road between EME College and Nicholson Monument should establish in writing whether it lies inside the C.D.A.'s 200-foot band before paying anything. Because the state acquired the land in 1967, a seller's revenue papers may not settle the question. Officials have given no sign that current occupants will be offered a place in the new scheme.

Owners of private land just behind the strip may eventually gain from a planned commercial frontage. But with no design, no date and a phased release, paying a premium on the strength of an announcement would be a bet, not an investment.

Several questions remain open: whether the C.D.A. board will approve the scheme before launch, what reserve prices will apply, how much of the land will be sellable, and whether the authority will publish the boundary map that would show, building by building, what is coming down.

Until it does, the strip will remain what it has been since 1967: state land in the records, and something else on the road.

Wajahat Ali is the editor of Milkiyat.com and covers real estate and urban development in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

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How we calculated

Calculations by Milkiyat.com, based on official figures.

Milkiyat.com finding 1: the officials' inputs imply up to 975 billion rupees

Land needed to reach 500 billion rupees: 500,000,000,000 ÷ 750,000 = 666,667 sq yd. That is 666,667 ÷ 500 = 1,333 kanals, or 666,667 ÷ 605 = 1,102 kanals of net saleable plots.

Milkiyat.com finding 2: the strip's size broadly checks out

A continuous corridor would cover 16,000 m ÷ 0.3048 = 52,493 ft × 400 ft (both sides) = 20,997,375 sq ft, or 20,997,375 ÷ 5,445 = 3,856 revenue kanals. The recorded 3,550 kanals is 92 percent of that. The 306-kanal gap may reflect junctions, crossings or excluded parcels; the C.D.A. has not said.

Milkiyat.com finding 3: scale and progress

• Usable share: 2,000 ÷ 3,550 = 56.3 percent, leaving 1,550 kanals not counted as usable.
• Against the C.D.A. budget: 500 billion ÷ 152 billion = 3.3 times; 975 billion ÷ 152 billion = 6.4 times.
• Recovered at Tarnol: 74 acres × 8 = 592 kanals, or 16.7 percent of the holding.
• Total area: 3,550 kanals ÷ 8 = 443.75 acres.

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Frequently asked questions

Has CDA launched the G.T. Road commercial area? No. As of 4 October 2026 it is in planning. A design committee has been formed and officials expect a launch in the coming months.

How much land is involved? CDA acquired 3,550 kanal in 1967. A CDA official says about 2,000 kanal can be used after planning.

Where exactly is the land? A 200-ft strip on each side of G.T. Road over about 16 km, from EME College to Nicholson Monument, including the Tarnol area.

Is the Rs500 billion figure reliable? It is one official's estimate, not a CDA decision. Milkiyat.com's check shows the official's own inputs imply up to Rs975 billion, while reaching Rs500 billion requires selling at least 1,100 to 1,330 kanal of net plots at Rs7.5 lakh per sq yd.

Can I book a plot now? No. CDA has not opened any booking. Anyone selling files or bookings for this scheme today is not acting for CDA.

What happens to buildings already on the strip? CDA officials say over 100 permanent buildings have been marked and will be demolished after due procedure before launch.

Who owns G.T. Road itself? The road belongs to the National Highway Authority. The 200-ft bands beside it belong to CDA.