June 19, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 03, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 18: Owners of nine under-developed private housing schemes in Fatehjang, that still fall in the ‘negative zone’ of Kala Chitta sensitive installations, have decided to move the court to get relief against the ban of defence ministry on any sort of construction in the negative area, Dawn learnt on Monday.

The dream of thousands of plot owners to have a house seems shattered as the authorities concerned are paying no heed to resolve their problem. However, two developed housing schemes of the defence ministry — PAF Housing Scheme and Army Welfare Trust — are very close to Kala Chitta mountains and also fall in the negative area, but no action is being taken against them.

Some 13 private housing and farm house schemes were launched in Fatehjang near Kala Chitta mountains in the early 90s in which thousands of people invested over Rs30 million. But a couple of years ago, they were declared illegal after the defence ministry stated them to be in the ‘negative zone’, the area within the radius of five miles from some sensitive installations in Kala Chitta Forest.

However, a few months ago the limits of negative area was reduced to three miles and four of the housing schemes were declared outside the negative zone and nine were still in it. Those which are still in the negative area are: Galaxy City, Mustafa Garden, Ministry of Commerce Housing Society, Model Town, Education City-I, Paradise Agriculture Farms-I (Hattar Near Shahpur Dam), Paradise Agriculture Farms-II (Village Charrat), Z Co Housing Scheme and Spinzer Agriculture Farms.

The schemes out of the negative zone are: Arain City, Grace Land Hill View, Mumtaz City and Education City-II.

A source close to the private housing schemes said their owners who had decided to file a petition in Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench had demanded of the defence ministry to allow them to establish their housing schemes to avoid loss of money of innocent plot holders.

As a second option the owners of the affected schemes have asked the ministry to acquire the land at present market rate if these schemes cannot be removed from the negative zone.

They have also demanded of the defence ministry to allow setting up of agriculture farms in the negative area, if the above mentioned two options are not accepted.

The source said the defence ministry and the local government of Fatehjang did not stop the establishment of housing schemes when they were launched in the early 90s, and when all the plots in the schemes had been purchased by the people, they were declared illegal or within the negative area.