PESHAWAR: The army-run Defence Housing Authority (DHA) is set to launch mega housing scheme on the suburbs of the provincial capital shortly, according to official sources.

They said that land acquisition for the project was under process. They said that soft launching of the scheme was likely to be held next month following which the project would be executed in the next few months.

The sources said that DHA had already taken possession of around 6,000 kanals of land on the Regi side, while about 4,000 kanals additional land was being acquired to expand the project further.

“Instead of developing housing scheme on agriculture lands, the management of DHA preferred to acquire disputed barren area for establishing residential scheme in Peshawar,” said an official. He emphasised that the scheme would introduce new trends in the housing sector in Peshawar.

The official, associated with the project, said that planning housing scheme at Regi was a strategic decision. He said that DHA management successfully resolved ownership disputes among the rival tribes and now they had become friends.

The authority had earlier planned to acquire land for the housing scheme at Badbher on the city’s southern Kohat Road, but it was dropped owing to security reasons and cost of development. “It wasn’t deemed viable,” the official said.

Orakzai and Regi tribes had a dispute over the ownership of the property for decades and the animosity had claimed 24 lives so far, the official said.

The area where residential scheme would be developed is adjacent to the main campus of University of Peshawar. Opposite to the DHA scheme, the provincial government had also started a major housing scheme in 1999, but it is yet to be completed.

DHA Peshawar was established after Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly passed a bill in 2009 to provide legal cover to the authority. The provincial revenue department had invoked Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 to ban sale and purchase of properties in the designated areas. DHA has already established housing schemes in major cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

Officials said that DHA had planned scheme in Peshawar on the request of provincial government in 2005. The authority had also planned to develop housing scheme in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

“Unbridled growth and poorly designed residential colonies have made Peshawar the most ill-planned city in the country,” said the official, adding that housing schemes in private sector had been developed without proper civic system and planning.

Officials said that launching of the scheme would create jobs and give boost to economic activities in 30 different segments in the construction sector.

Personnel of army would be given five per cent of the total residential plots and the remaining would be sold to civilians.

About environmental aspects of the housing scheme, the officials said that seven per cent of the total land would be dedicated to green area in addition to green belts while four to five per cent area would be specified for commercial activities.

They said that concept of recycling pollutants and solid waste management had been incorporated in the master plan to save water bodies including the Kabul River and lands from pollution. Under the master plan 50 per cent of the total land would be reserved for residential purposes.

Published in Dawn January 21st , 2015

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