KARACHI: Land being illegally sold in Surjani Town
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, March 1: At least 400 plots including residential, commercial and flat sites in Surjani Town's Sector 4-B (KDA Scheme No 41) have been allegedly occupied, and are being booked and sold illegally by a developer
, forcing allottees of the plots to run from pillar to the post.
More than 400 plots, which include over 10 flat sites, each measuring one acre, and commercial and residential plots of 120 to 400 square yards, have been illegally occupied and being sold by a developer, confirmed a senior official of the city government's land department. He said that most of such plots were auctioned either by the city government or the defunct KDA.
Sources in the city government said the developer, who had also established a booking office on three plots bearing Nos 59, 60 and 61 in Surjani Town's Sector 4-B, was not only selling the plots without obtaining the required no-objection certificate from the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) but was occupying more plots in the same sector almost everyday.
When asked what measures were being taken by the city government to retrieve the land from the possession of those who had occupied it so that the same may be restored to their genuine allottees, the city government official said though the KBCA had recently sealed the developer's booking office, representatives of the developers had restarted their business of booking plots after breaking the seal.
Sources in the KBCA confirmed that representatives of another developer 'Salar Town' were also engaged in booking and selling plots in Surjani Town's Sector 4-B without obtaining the required no-objection certificate from the KBCA's design section.
"Our officials had sealed the developer's booking office, situated on plot Nos 59, 60 and 61 in Surjani Town's Sector 4-B under Section 7-A of the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979 (Amended up to 1982) but the seal was found broken," the source said.
He added that the Gadap Town's deputy controller of buildings under whose jurisdiction, Surjani Town fell, had already requested the SHO Surjani Town, through a letter dated Feb 26, 2005, to register an FIR against the representatives of Ms Salar Town for tampering with the seal of the developer's booking office.
An official in the city government has, however, admitted that proper action against those who have occupied the land in Surjani is being delayed unnecessarily on one pretext or the other, and if no immediate measures were taken to retrieve the occupied land, hundreds of allottees, especially those having small-sized residential plots of 120 square yards, would suffer a lot.
Besides, the city government would lose its writ if it failed to restore the occupied land to its genuine allottees; those who had bought the land through the city government's sponsored auctions, the sources remarked.
