FAISALABAD: The Peri Urban Structure Plan (PUSP) has been chalked out ‘without conducting a physical survey’ of areas while the Faisalabad Development Authority (FDA) has been unable to approve scores of housing schemes since the time when the plan was not even discussed on the table.

The housing schemes pending for approval with the FDA have inflicted a loss of billions of rupees on developers. This was claimed by town developers while talking to Dawn here on Thursday.

They said the issue had been raised with FDA chairman Sheikh Ijaz Ahmed, who is also the PML-N MPA, and FDA director general Yawar Hussain in a meeting held at their office on Tuesday last.

Body formed to look into claim of developers

An eight-member committee comprising five members of town developers and three of FDA officials has been constituted to look into the issue of developers and find solution to the PUSP.

Noorul Ameen Mengal, who was the Faisalabad DCO when the PUSP was notified in April 2015 for next 20 years, however denied the stance of developers and said all were consulted by the urban unit.

He said the people wanted to make the plan controversial for their vested interests as all stakeholders, including developers, were also consulted multiple times during study of the plan.

Mr Mengal said the plan had been prepared by the Punjab Cities Governance Improve Project (PCGIP) as a consultant firm.

He welcomed the formation of the committee by the FDA.

The plan has been notified with an aim to stop the unbridled and uncontrolled growth of the city area.

Documents of the city district government read that through the PUSP it will strive to balance the housing, social and business needs of the city by addressing affordability, accessibility and livability in a sustainable manner.

This initiative has been taken with due consultation of all stakeholders, including government departments, NGO, private sector, general public and the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

A town developer, Hamid Rasheed, said the plan had created a lot of problems for developers rather to facilitate dwellers and planners of the city as well.

He said the plan had been imposed without consulting the stakeholders concerned.

He said neither the administration had invited the objections of citizens nor it asked the town developers to come up with suggestions to make the plan effective and beneficial for the city.

There should not be crop or green land in the PUSP, but in this plan both lands exist which shows how effectively the survey has been conducted, he added.

Mr Rasheed said that FDA officials had constituted an eight-member committee which would meet on a daily basis and would submit their suggestions within a week.

He said scores of developers had purchased the land and submitted for approval much before the PUSP, but they were still struggling to get approved the projects.

Qamarul Zaman Hashmi, chief organizer of the Faisalabad Real Estate Developers Association, said that developers had suffered losses of billions of rupees due to the PUSP.

He said scores of schemes had been submitted to the FDA prior to a notification of the plan, but approval of schemes had been delayed because of negligence of FDA officials.

He said such schemes had been pending with the FDA for more than one year and now the FDA officials were pressing the developers to pay the Peri Urban fee, which was unjust.

He said that FDA officials were imposing one percent fee as per rates fixed by the deputy commissioner and such restriction was for the whole housing scheme.

He said the officials were ignoring the fact that developers had to surrender about 50pc of the housing scheme land for public buildings, parks, mosques, filth stations, roads, graveyards, etc to the FDA.

The provincial government should find a solution to the issue and, if not possible, then the fee should be imposed on the saleable land instead on the whole scheme.

“We had purchased the agricultural land prior to submitting the scheme to FDA for approval of housing colonies, but under the PUSP we were being forced to pay the residential fee,” he said.

He said the PUSP was not applicable to the housing scheme submitted to the FDA prior to the plan notification.

The FDA director-general said the committee had been formed to examine the demands of developers according to rules and practices of other authorities.

He said the developers had submitted their demands in writing.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2017