KARACHI, Aug 20: The Karachi Building Control Authority has decided to demolish two highrise buildings in the city constructed in violation of building rules.

With the initiation of demolition of buildings, four KBCA inspectors who failed to discharge their responsibility to check illegal constructions on time have also been suspended.

This decision was taken by KBCA after a green-signal from Governor Mohammadmian Soomro, who was given a presentation on Tuesday on the performance of KBCA and myth of 260 buildings sealed in 1996 on the instruction of the then chief minister, it is reliably learnt.

The presentation was given by new chief of Controller of Buildings of KBCA Brig A. R. Nasir, who is also chairman of the governor’s inspection enquiries and implementation team.

During the presentation, Brig Nasir reportedly recommended to the government to facilitate people for submission of applications for regularization and completion plan of their buildings till March 2003 as was proposed originally but after poor response from the builders and the people, the facility was withdrawn in July.

During the presentation, it was pointed out that the sealed buildings were 252 in numbers and not 260. A case was laid before the governor by builders for regularisation of illegal construction after payment of penalty, which could bring to the provincial exchequer up to Rs 6 billion, the Sindh Building Control (Amendment) Ordinance 2001 and Regularisation of Buildings Control Ordinance 2002 were promulgated. But to the surprise of the authorities, by June 31st only 51 plans were received while five buildings were regularized and 16 were deleted from the list under orders of the court, the sources said.

Governor Mohammadmian Soomro on Tuesday directed the authorities to expedite action against the persons involved in illegal allotment of government lands and construction of buildings in violation of building bye-laws in Karachi.

He issued these directives presiding over two meetings convened to review the progress of implementation of law and the actions with regard to disposing of government lands at throwaway prices and construction of buildings illegally.

The concerned minister, secretaries, chief secretary K.B. Rind, City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, officials of NAB, Principal secretary to Governor Brig. Akhtar Zamin, Karachi Building Control Authority Chief Brig. A.S.Nasir, DCO Karachi and other officials attended the meetings.

Governor Soomro directed to expedite the recovery of amount of allotment and take stern action against the persons involved.

Maj. Gen. Aijaz Ahmed Bakhshi, Director General, NAB, Sindh and Justice Abdul Rahman, Chairman of the Committee for Regularization of Lands, briefing on progress, said that so far 170 offer letters and 110 challans have been issued.

Justice Abdul Rahman informed that challans worth Rs840 million were issued of which Rs150 million have been recovered.

Speaking at an other meeting regarding illegal construction, Mr. Soomro observed that instead of issuing statements only, practical action should be taken against the persons involved in illegal construction.

KBCA chief Brig. A.S.Nasir informed that action was taken against 60 illegal constructions up to June 30, 2002 of which 18 were ground plus one and 42 were over ground plus one.