Islamabad’s Sector E-12, a housing scheme that has waited nearly four decades for basic development, is finally moving towards completion. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has announced that more than 60 percent of the development work in the sector is now complete, following the recovery of 1,135 kanals of government land that had remained under occupation for around 40 years.
The update came in a press release issued by the authority on November 6, 2026, which said development activities were progressing rapidly under the directions of CDA Chairman and Chief Commissioner Islamabad Sohail Ashraf. For thousands of plot owners who bought land in the sector in the late 1980s, it is the clearest sign yet that the long-delayed project may finally reach the finish line.
Work is now under way across all four sub-sectors of E-12. In Sector E-12/4, the earthwork has been completed, while construction of the base, sub-base and drainage system is in progress. Earthwork has also been finished on Khayaban-e-Iqbal Service Road, the South Service Road and the East Service Road, which will form the main routes serving the sector.
Progress is equally visible inside the residential streets. In Sector E-12/3, triple surface treatment, the final layer of road surfacing, has been completed in 15 streets, while earthwork and base construction continue in the remaining streets. In both E-12/2 and E-12/1, the same surfacing work has been completed in 25 streets each, with earthwork and base development progressing in the streets that remain.
Speaking on the occasion, the CDA chairman said all obstacles in the way of the sector’s development were being removed in accordance with the law. He said 1,135 kanals of government land worth billions of rupees had been recovered after 40 years, and made it clear that encroachments on government land would not be tolerated under any circumstances.
He added that completion of development work in Sector E-12 and other sectors remained among the authority’s top priorities, with all available resources being used to speed up the projects. The development of E-12, he said, would improve residential facilities for citizens and help address Islamabad’s growing housing needs.
The sector was launched by the CDA in 1989, when more than 4,000 plots were sold with the promise that developed plots would be handed over within two years. Instead, the project stalled for 37 years, and many of the original allottees have died while waiting for possession.
The delay came down to possession of the land. Local landlords had built houses on the acquired land, and compensation cases remained pending for years. Work could not even begin in E-12/4, which was covered with houses built by locals in a dispute over compensation. In the other three sub-sectors, work moved only slowly because the authority did not hold clear possession.
The deadlock began to break only recently. The CDA launched an operation to retrieve the occupied land, and in late October it announced that more than 1,000 kanals had been recovered. Around 15 allotment letters were handed over to local landlords on the spot, with the authority promising to clear all genuine pending compensation cases. The chairman visited the sector on October 26 to review progress and directed officials to accelerate the work.
The E-12 recovery is part of a wider campaign. On October 29, the CDA said it had reclaimed government land worth approximately Rs1.3 trillion across Islamabad, including around 600 acres near the Prime Minister’s House and illegal commercial structures in Sector C-17. The campaign is being carried out under the direction of Interior Minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi and led by Chairman Sohail Ashraf.
Earlier, in early October, the CDA set a target of completing the development of E-12 within six months. If that target is met, it would end a delay of nearly four decades and finally give allottees the developed plots they were promised.
The stakes go beyond a single sector. The CDA has not developed a new residential sector since D-12 in 2008, and the shortage of developed plots has added to the pressure on housing in the capital. Several other sectors, including C-13, C-15, C-16, D-13, E-13 and F-13, remain pending because compensation cases have yet to be cleared. How E-12 is finished will therefore be watched closely as a test of whether the authority can finally clear its long backlog of stalled sectors.
For now, the numbers offer genuine encouragement to the people who have waited longest. With more than 60 percent of the work done, roads taking shape street by street and the land dispute that blocked the project for decades finally settled, E-12 is closer to becoming a lived-in neighbourhood than it has ever been. The real test will come in the months ahead, when the remaining streets, drainage and services must be finished and plots handed over to owners who have already waited a lifetime. If the CDA holds to its six-month target, one of Islamabad’s oldest housing promises may at last be kept.
