January 06, 2008	Sunday	Zilhaj 26, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: The Senate subcommittee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs on Saturday directed the Ministry of Interior, the Capital Development Authority and the Islamabad administration to monitor the affairs of housing societies in the capital.

The committee at a meeting presided over by Senator Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi said its mandate was to check the malpractices reportedly committed by a number of housing societies and to facilitate the good, efficient and law abiding societies in getting approval of their development plans and in speedy completion of other formalities.

Senators Kamran Murtaza and Gulshan Saeed also attended the meeting.

The meeting expressed concern over troubling accounts of people who had invested their life earnings in housing projects and even after years of waiting were no closer to getting their dream homes.

Fake housing societies, misuse of funds and unqualified developers in such schemes badly hit genuine housing schemes besides betraying the confidence of buyers.

Over 80 private housing schemes were launched in the twin cities but the management of only a dozen obtained the required land and NOC to start the development work.

The departments concerned like the CDA and the district administration of Islamabad were equally responsible for the situation, as the process of Ishtamaal (consolidation of land) was never started in the capital, leading to fraud in sale and purchase of land.

It also led to the litigation in numerous cases. Because of this specific reason, most of the private housing schemes failed to get the required land to develop their schemes, the meeting observed.

Unlike in other provinces, the small pieces of land in the capital are owned by petty landlords. In the absence of a land consolidation system, the people may know in which mozas and khasra their land is located but they do not know its exact location.

This is the reason the developers of private housing projects face difficulties to get the required land. Even if they manage to do so, it is generally challenged in courts by one or more landholders who do not want to sell the land to the developers in the same khasra.

Recently, a Senate standing committee asked the government to introduce more checks to better regulate private housing societies in the capital.

The developers and plot owners of over a dozen housing schemes in the vicinity of the proposed airport at Fatehjang have high hopes about success of these schemes provided the ambiguity in construction of the new airport is over. Some circles believe that the new airport cannot be built there due to the sensitivity of Kala Chitta Mountain which accommodates some sensitive installations.

Earlier, all private housing schemes in residential areas of Fatehjang could not acquire land or conduct development activities within 5km radius of the negative zone around the proposed airport.

However, the authorities have reduced the radius of the negative zone from five to 3km which would benefit around half a dozen housing schemes. A CDA official, when contacted, said under CDA’s zoning regulation 1992, private housing schemes can be sponsored by a cooperative society registered under the Cooperative Societies Act 1925 and by a private limited company listed with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan in Zone-II, Zone-V and in Sector E-11.

He said the size of the scheme should not be less than 800 kanals in Zone-II, and 400 kanals in Sector E-11 and Zone-V.

He said previously there were six stages for approval of housing schemes, but now these had been reduced to four - approval of the layout plan, approval of engineering designs, issuance of NOC and completion of roads and other services.