KARACHI, April 24: The Chief Controller of Buildings, Brig (Retd) A.S. Nasir, said that he would not favour any further extension in the cut out date for regularization of buildings with illegalities and irregularities while pointing out that April 30 is the last date for submission of cases.

Brig (Retd) A.S. Nasir was addressing a press briefing here on Sunday.

In order to facilitate people in maximum numbers to submit their cases for regularization, he said that it had been decided that the KBCA special counter would operate up to 8pm on all working days as well as on holidays to receive applications.

He further said that the KBCA had so far received 20,000 applications out of which 10,000 had been formally accepted and were under process. He pointed out that the KBCA had a capacity to process eight to ten cases daily but with deployment of more staff, the capacity had been increased to process 30 to 35 cases of regularization daily.

However, with this speed, quite a number of months would be required to process all the cases filed and approved for scrutiny.

About generating revenue with regularization, he said that the KBCA would likely to get two billion rupees from regularization of illegal constructions. He pointed out that the KBCA was getting a monthly income of Rs100 million while its expenditures were around Rs12.5 million and the amount left was being handed over to the city government.

Brig (Retd) A.S. Nasir said that the Karachi Building Control Authority would organize a competition on President Pervez Musharraf’s vision of “Enlightened Moderation” as a national project.

He said the competitors would submit their art works by May 20 and the winners would be adjudged by a committee of experts on May 25. He said the entries could be sent in his name at KBCA Civic Centre with envelope to be marked as “Confidential Enlightened Moderation”.

Brig A.S. Nasir also unfolded a plan of holding exhibition on housing to be held in the last week of May at Expo Centre. He said that the housing projects completed, approved or under process would be on display at the exhibition.

He said that projects of some 19 builders would be put on display and the owners would explain the salient features of their schemes through modules and charts.

Brig Nasir said that yet another project, the KBCA was going to take in hand, was related to the uplift of kutchi abadies in the city. He pointed out that out of 538 katchi abadies, 276 were under the control of city government.

He said that these abadies had plots of various sizes which would be used for construction of high rises in a planned manner to help provide better

living to residents of such localities. — APP