ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: The Committee on Cooperative Housing Societies will submit its recommendations to the prime minister for approval within two months. In a statement issued by the Press Information Department here on Friday, Minister for Housing and Works Syed Safwanullah said the ministry was providing full support to the committee formed by the federal government to control “land mafia”.

The committee held its first meeting on July 12 under the chairmanship of the minister for housing and works to examine various issues in a comprehensive manner.

The issues discussed included unauthorized sale of plots without fulfilling the prescribed conditions and sale of plots in excess of the land actually held by the societies mainly due to a lacuna in the registration process where societies are not required to submit land ownership documents.

The other issues were large scale acquiring of land against the spirit of land acquisition scheme, absence of a single office to monitor the activities of housing societies, and low standard of town planning.