RAHIM YAR KHAN: The mushroom growth of new housing schemes in four tehsils of Rahim Yar Khan is at its peak and these schemes are selling plots without approval from the municipal committees concerned and the district council.

Many buyers are lured to buy land in housing schemes and after getting trapped, they have to wait for years to start construction due to incomplete development works.

According to the fresh data collected from the district council, there are 28 housing schemes in RYK tehsil and only one is approved, 20 are under process of getting approval and seven are illegal.

In tehsil Khanpur, not a single housing scheme out of 14 is approved while five are under process and nine are illegal.

There are total 15 housing schemes in tehsil Liaqatpur and only one is approved, 11 are under process and three are illegal.

In Sadqiabad tehsil, three residential schemes are under the process of getting approval while five are illegal.

The district council has reportedly raided various illegal housing schemes in four tehsils and registered cases after sealing them in first week of September.

In the limits of RYK municipal committee, there are total 54 housing schemes of which 22 are approved, 31 are under process and only one housing scheme is illegal.

According to RYK municipal committee sources, the FIRs were registered against four schemes due to incomplete infrastructure and recommendations were sent to police stations against three more schemes for registration of cases.

Final notices have been issued to remaining housing schemes for completion and a ban has been imposed on their registries through revenue department. Many housing society owners were selling their plots without mentioning the name of housing scheme due to the ban on registries On the other hand, the owners of the schemes have got ownership documents with mention of only the name of Mauza only from patwaris for mutation.

District Officer Planning District Council and Municipal Officer Planning RYK Municipal Committee Hussain Liaqat told this correspondent he had started raids on all the illegal housing schemes in four tehsils. He said the district council and municipal committee would advertise housing scheme details for the public so that they should not be trapped.

“But it was also duty of the masses also to check and investigate the authenticity of the housing scheme before buying plots,” he added.

Administrator Municipal Committee Additional Deputy Commissioner Revenue Dr Jahanzeb Labar was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2019