KARACHI, Dec 15: In what appears to be an attempt to block speculation in land prices, the city government is considering imposing heavy fines on owners of residential plots who will fail to begin construction within a stipulated time.

It has become a common practice in the city that people buy plots in several housing schemes not for building homes but for getting quick profit by selling them in the open market. Plots are being sold illegally in those schemes also where transfer of ownership is banned.

This trend causes an unnatural and exorbitant increase in the prices of residential plots and a genuine buyer cannot afford to buy even an 80-square-yard residential plot.

Talking to newsmen, the EDO Master Plan, Iftikhar Qaimkhani, said that it had been recommended in the Karachi Strategic Development Plan 2020 that people who were not constructing houses on their plots would be given a specific timeframe to utilise their land.

Citing an example of a housing scheme, Shah Latif Town on the National Highway, he said the scheme was notified in 1980 but the occupancy rate was only five per cent after passing 27 years.

Mr Qaimkhani said the city government was considering imposing heavy fines on such persons to curb the rising trend of speculation in land prices.

He explained that failing to pay the fine would result in the cancellation of the ownership and the city government would return the original cost of the piece of land to the owner and auction the plot in the open market.

The EDO said the city government was encouraging more and more housing schemes in the city but it wanted to discourage the trend of speculation in the land prices.

He hoped that if the policy was accepted, the rate of occupancy in several housing schemes would improve.