KARACHI, May 28: Amnesty scheme introduced by the government to regularize illegal buildings in Karachi has been suffering due to inter-departmental row in city district government.

The Master Plan Group of Offices (MPGO) and building control department are presenting different figures about the number of illegal buildings in the city and the cases received for their regularization.

Sources said that about 24 cases were pending with the department concerned just for issuance of the letter of ownership after approval of these cases by the committee formed by nazim.

The city government officials said that the Master Plan Group of Offices and Building Control Office had different figures about the cases received. The building control department claimed having received thousands of cases by the MPGO for regularization. However, MPGO officials put the figure at 716. Moreover, the MPGO claims to have processed every single case and no case is pending for want of action.

Regularization of construction and change of land use under the Sindh Regularization and Control Ordinance was introduced in the year 2002 following the instruction of President Musharraf to regularize illegal structures in Karachi especially highrises along Sharea Faisal.

Later, the illegal structures in other parts of the city were also included under this ordinance for their regularization. Official sources said that the implementation of amnesty scheme for regularization of the highrises along Sharea Faisal remained very slow, as out of 260 such cases only 50 had been processed so far.

Sources said that billions of rupees expected to be generated by regularizing illegal buildings was just an eye wash, which was not achievable at all. They said that the exaggerated number of illegal structures reported by the building control department was just an attempt to please the higher ups through miscalculations. -PPI