HARIPUR, Dec 10: At least 150 residential quarters built under the famous 7 marla scheme of the Junejo government in village Pharhala, are disappearing not because of weather but unscrupulous elements who are stealing construction material from the site.

The five and seven marla residential scheme was launched by late Mohammad Khan Junejo to provide homes to the homeless and low-income groups in 1985. Two sites had been acquired for the scheme in the Haripur district: one at village Kotnajibullah near the Hattar Industrial Estate and the other in village Pharhala, some four kilometres to the north-east of the district headquarters.

More than 30 residential units were built over 100 kanals in village Kotnajibullah, and 150 houses sprawling over 150 Kanals were built in Pharhala village at a cost in millions of rupees. But, before the ownership rights of these costly houses could be given to people, his government was dismissed by late president Gen Ziaul Haq, throwing the scheme into confusion and disarray.

Later, the Nawaz Sharif government planned to utilize these residential units to establish workers' colonies and promised to ensure all infrastructural facilities and civic amenities like schools and colleges in these sites, but his government was dismissed in October 1999.

The present government auctioned the open space and residential quarters of Kotnajibullah village in 2001 to a private party of Haripur, but the 150 quarters of village Pharhala were still lying unutilized.

It was observed during a visit to these residential units that due to lack of proper maintenance and watch by government agencies, the colony in Pharhala had become a permanent abode of addicts and criminals.

These anti-social elements had also taken away doors, windows, ventilators and even their frames from the houses on the site. Some of them had even demolished walls and even roofs of some of houses to sell bricks and iron.

Malik Khaliqdad Khan advocate, who hails from the Pharhala village, while commenting on the situation, held the government responsible for the destruction of residential quarters which, he said, were constructed with the hard-earned money of citizens.

He said if successive governments had carried forward the same policy and distributed these residential units among low-income groups or even sold them on easy instalments, it would not only have earned the government millions of rupees but also given homes to hundreds of homeless the homes.

He demanded early allotment of these houses on easy instalments to low-income groups to save the scheme and millions of rupees spent on it.