ISLAMABAD, July 8: The Senate's standing committee on housing and works on Thursday called for getting the government houses vacated from illegal occupation of police officials in Islamabad.
The committee meeting, which was presided over by Senator Chaudhry Ghias Ahmed Mela, ordered to summon the inspector general of police, Islamabad, Fayyaz Ahmed Toru, for the immediate expulsion of police officials from the government houses.
The meeting was attended by the committee members and senior officers of the ministry of housing and works. The committee also ordered to ensure the implementation of rules regarding hiring of the government houses and removal of loopholes in their implementation.
A subcommittee, headed by Farooq Azam Malik, was constituted in the meeting, which would streamline the affairs of the housing ministry and Capital Development Authority (CDA).
The committee called upon the ministry of housing and works to ensure that government employees were allotted accommodation on merit and in accordance with the rules. The members of the committee were of the view that ministry should have powers to allot government accommodation to the deserving employees on out of turn basis.
For this purpose, the committee directed the ministry to take up the matter with the Prime Minister's Secretariat. The members of the committee further suggested that the ministry should consider providing shelter to the poor in rural areas at affordable prices.
The committee was informed that housing schemes for the government employees will be launched in all districts of the country on public-private partnership basis and provincial governments/ICT will provide 100 acres of state land in each district at affordable prices.
Meanwhile, a source in the Estate Officer told Dawn that about 558 government houses had been illegally occupied in Islamabad, out of which 189 had been occupied by the police.
The ministry has ejecting 190 unauthorized occupants last month, the source said and added that there was acute shortage of houses and that more than 16,000 federal government employees were still on the general waiting list for the allotment of government accommodation.
