KARACHI, Jan 6: The city government has decided to confiscate the lands allotted to cooperative housing societies which have not been developed for a long time. The societies which have failed to start development of infrastructure and houses on the lands allotted to them long ago would be given a final opportunity and if they did not avail the chance, they would have to lose the land.

The decision has been taken by City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal, who has asked all housing societies to start development work on their lands or face the cancellation of the allotment.

He said the city government would provide all the required utilities to the lands if the societies started construction work, saying that development of the lands and construction of houses would benefit their members and help cope with the growing problem of housing in the city.

Mr Kamal pointed out that in Scheme-33, a number of pieces of land had been retrieved from the land-grabbers’ mafia and development of roads, installation of streetlights and laying of water and sewerage lines had been started. It was now up to the societies concerned to start construction of houses on these lands, he added.

He noted that dozens of housing societies had got lands allotted at cheaper rates by committing to provide better housing facilities to people but after a lapse of a long time, they did not start infrastructure development or construction work. Therefore, he added, the city government had decided to confiscate all such lands after issuing the defaulting societies a final notice.

Meanwhile, the city government has issued final show-cause notices to its 262 employees who appeared to be “ghost employees”. The employees belonged to the local government and education departments.

A spokesman for the CDGK said on Sunday that the action had been taken on the order of the city nazim.

He said that EDOs had also warned officers and other employees of their departments against negligence and directed them to discharge their duties efficiently or face dismissal.

—Agencies