ISLAMABAD, Oct 12: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has so far not taken punitive action against any illegal housing society in the federal capital, sources in the CDA told Dawn on Sunday.
The CDA had declared 41 housing societies ‘illegal’. However, these societies had been registered with the authority since 1985, the sources said.
“If these housing societies were doing anything wrong, why action had not been taken against these societies during the last 18 years,” they said.
It is for the first time that the CDA had announced that any private cooperative housing society that fell beyond sector 17 of any series had no concern with it.
They said the CDA had to announce its clear-cut policy for the general public about these housing societies so that people could not become an easy prey.
They said illogical terms and conditions of the CDA for a private cooperative housing society were the main cause of non- completion of these housing schemes.
“It is very difficult for these societies to get 1,600-kanal compact piece of land as required by the CDA. People are not ready to vacate land in Islamabad, therefore these societies face a lot of problems to get 1,600 kanals of compact land,” they said.
The sources said the CDA itself could not get its vast land vacated from encroachers and non-development of D-12 sector was one such example.
“According to Interior Minister Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, some 20,000 acres of the CDA land was in adverse possession,” the sources said.
When contacted, member planning of the CDA Maqbool Elahi said the authority had served notices on illegal housing societies several times in the past.
He said there were two types of housing societies in Islamabad, i.e, societies registered with the CDA in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), and those that did not fall in the federal capital territory. The CDA had no concern with housing societies that did not fall in the jurisdiction of the federal capital.
The official said the most severe action which the authority could take against an illegal housing society was taking over of its land so that money deposited by innocent people could not be misappropriated.
“However, we cannot take over the land which does not fall in the CDA’s jurisdiction,” he added.
He agreed that so far the CDA had not taken such an action against any private housing society.
The member planning said the CDA was only responsible for physical aspects of these housing societies. However, other affairs were being managed by the Islamabad Capital Territory Cooperative Department (ICTCD).
A source in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration said some of the housing societies were facing land acquisition problem, causing delay in their completion.
He said most of the housing societies in Islamabad were registered in 1980 and started development work in 1990, but, despite a lapse of over 20 years they still had not been completed.
When contacted, the ICT’s registrar housing societies in Islamabad, Malik Sadaqat, told Dawn that land acquisition was one of the main problem confronting the housing societies. He said all societies in the capital were bound to follow the rules of the ICT and the CDA.