KARACHI, Jan 9: The Sindh government’s controversial decision of regularizing all illegal buildings in the city has received a setback following KBCA’s amalgamation with the City Government.
The builders, who had earlier actively been seeking regularization of their projects, have now abandoned their plans in the new scenario.
The process of regularization of illegal buildings had started on Dec 3 after the promulgation of the Sindh Building Control (Amended) Ord-2001, and it will continue till Dec 2, 2002.
The KBCA had started selling regularization forms costing Rs 100 to the builders and owners of unlawfully constructed buildings from Dec 17 and around 300 forms had been sold out in the first 10 days, but as soon as the news concerning the merger of the KBCA spread the regularization process slowed down after Jan 1, 2002, and it is since then that only eight to 10 forms are being sold daily.
So far, around 480 such forms had been purchased by the owners of the buildings.
Citing reasons for the slow pace of sale of forms, KBCA sources said the builders, who had earlier been anxiously waiting for getting their buildings regularized, have now adopted a policy of “wait and see” till a final decision is taken by the City Nazim, Naimatullah Khan, with regard to the transfer of KBCA officials to the city’s 18 town administrations.
It is not yet clear whether the final authority with regard to regularization would be the City Nazim or Nazims of town administrations under whose jurisdiction such buildings are located.
Independent sources are of the view that the builders of all those highrise buildings and multi-storied commercial complexes in which major violation of building rules had been committed and which have not yet been sold out to individuals, would spare no time in getting their projects regularized to recover their project amount and profit.
With regard to those illegally constructed residential/commercial projects which have already been sold out and are in the possession of the allottees, KBCA officials admitted that the builders of such ventures would not take an interest in getting their projects regularized and hence it would be the allottees who would ultimately suffer.
According to sources, there are between 25,000 and 30,000 other highrise and multi-storied buildings which have been constructed illegally and such a huge number of unauthorized buildings give one an impression as if there was no authority in the city to check such illegal constructions.
Among them are 160 such illegally constructed buildings which were sealed in 1996 on the orders of the then Sindh chief minister, Syed Abdullah Shah.
These illegal buildings had either not provided parking space or have been constructed in violation of compulsory open space or had added additional floors without an approved plan or had no KBCA NOC.
Most of illegal buildings are located in PECHS, Garden East and West, Karachi Cooperative Housing Society, Jamshed Quarters, CP Berar, Bahadurabad, Dhoraji and Old City.
Insiders told Dawn that about 70 per cent of all those highrise buildings which had been raised on either side of Sharea Faisal had been unlawfully constructed as their builders had either not provided parking space or had built a number of additional floors without getting their plans approved, thus creating enormous parking problems on such a VVIP Road.
The KBCA officials expect that regularization of such a large number of illegally constructed buildings would generate between Rs 5 and 6 billion as the emended SBCO, 2001, had permitted regularization of such buildings after levying compound penalty that ranges between Rs 150 and 300 per square feet, depending upon the locality where such buildings are located.