June 13, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1427

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LAHORE, June 12: At least 31 amendments are being made to the Punjab Cooperatives Act to control malpractice in cooperative housing schemes and check the involvement of land mafia in the business.

Briefing newsmen on the amended draft moved in the Punjab Assembly, provincial cooperatives minister Col Malik Muhammad Anwar (retired) said on Monday that the housing sector was not covered under the law enacted by British rulers for the establishment of cooperative societies in the agriculture sector.

He said the land mafia and property dealers had started taking advantage of the lacuna and started forming bogus societies for extorting money from citizens eager to solve their housing problems.

The department, he said, was taking all possible steps to check the malpractice in the cooperative housing schemes. Proceedings, he said, had been started for the liquidation of 37 societies and cases of 13 others had been referred to the National Accountability Bureau.

These included societies of Wapda, Sargodha; Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation; Aitchison College, Lahore; Government Officers, Lahore; Official Employees, Lahore; Superior Government Employees, Lahore; Pakistan Medical Lahore; Parkview, Lahore; Gulshan-i-Lahore; Common Services, Lahore; Local Government, Lahore; and the Cooperative Housing Society.

He said that 268 housing societies were registered in the province but only 145 had framed their bylaws. Out of 151 cooperative housing societies registered in Lahore, 117 were functional, 14 non-functional and 20 under liquidation.

Property dealers would not be allowed to become members of the administrative committee of any cooperative housing scheme in future.

He said sponsors of every cooperative housing scheme would be required to complete development and hand over the possession to members within five years.

The minister said that the Cooperative Societies registrar would be authorised to liquidate societies failing to develop schemes within five years after completing the required formalities.

He said the provision had been made to check inordinate delay in the development of housing schemes. Some societies established in 1980 and 1985 had not completed the development of housing schemes till date.

Mr Anwer said the registration of all cooperative housing schemes would be mandatory under the law and no scheme would be described as a society in future. Sponsors of all housing schemes would be required to get their accounts audited every year and change auditors after every two years.

Sponsors of schemes, he said, would not be allowed to shift their registered offices without informing the department and members in writing. The cooperative societies registrar would also be authorised to check the record of housing schemes, get the accounts audited and development plans examined by experts.

The government had also decided to allow merger of smaller housing schemes covering 200 to 400 kanals to form bigger schemes or merge in schemes being developed in the vicinity.

About the Punjab Provincial Cooperative Bank, the minister said that it was the only provincial cooperative bank in the country which had not been closed down. Cooperative banks in other provinces had been closed down for running in loss. The bank in Punjab, he said, had started earning profit since last year.

The bank was offering loans to farmers at nine to 12 per cent rate and had earned a profit of Rs180 million last year and Rs300 million this year, he said.