KARACHI, Jan 7: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal on Saturday gave a ‘last chance’ to the owners of buildings to get their structures regularized and to facilitate them he also withdrew five per cent surcharge in this regard.

Speaking at a press conference in the committee room of the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA), he said that challans had been issued to the owners of some 12,000 buildings regarding regularization, but they showed no interest in this regard.

Mr Kamal said that if these building owners failed to avail this chance, the leases and maps of their buildings would be cancelled and the structures would be razed.

He said that the KBCA rules and regulations would strictly be implemented and no leniency would be shown in this regard and vowed to transform the city from an unplanned jungle of concrete to a well-planned city.

The nazim asked those building owners, who were served with challans, not to challenge the authority of the government and get their buildings regularized in the best interests of the city and its residents.

He said that the building regularization would help in initiating standard constructions in the city.

Commenting on the decision of giving five per cent relief in surcharge, Mr Kamal said that he felt that when the city government was going to deal sternly with the owners of some 12,000 buildings, it should also give them some relief as well.

He, however, clarified that this concession would be for those building owners, who had already been served with the challans and the surcharge would remain applicable to the new challans.

The nazim said that he had given this concession as a goodwill gesture, sensing the economic hardships of citizens and the humanitarian nature of this issue.

“This should not be considered as the weakness of the city government”, he clarified.

Mr Kamal asked the owners of all buildings to get their buildings regularized at the earliest; otherwise they might face necessary legal action.

He said that in order to facilitate the process, a one-window operation would be initiated after 15 days.

The nazim said that if the required papers were complete, the map of a house could be approved within 24 hours.

The chief controller of the KBCA, Mumtazur Rehman, was also present.

Meanwhile, the city nazim directed the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) administration to expedite the process of bills recovery for financing completion of projects to improve water and sewerage network.

Speaking to the officials of the tax department at the KWSB office, he said that the recovery of bills against the amount of water being supplied by the utility was not satisfactory.

The nazim urged the KWSB officials to increase bill’s recovery and reiterated government’s resolve to provide water and sewerage facilities to the citizens on priority basis.

He reminded that the board was not recovering money for selling water but rather it was charging for supplying and distributing it.

“KWSB was neglected in the past and now it suffers from various problems,” he added.

The nazim said that the KWSB should no longer rely on government subsidies and should be upgraded into a profit earning organization.

He said that he would summon meeting, every two months, to review performance of government departments.

Earlier, KWSB MD Ifthikar Haider briefed the nazim on the performance of tax department. EDO Finance Roshan Ali Sheikh and DMD Shahid Saleem were also present.—PPI