LAHORE, Sept 26: The Punjab government will develop housing colonies for overseas Pakistanis in eight big cities at a cost of Rs2 billion.

Punjab Housing and Urban Development Minister Syed Raza Ali Gilani disclosed this during a meeting with expatriate Pakistanis in the US on Sunday.

He said that 200 acre housing schemes were proposed to be developed for overseas Pakistanis in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad and 100 acre schemes in Gujranwala, Sargodha, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur.

The minister said the government would take stern action against the elements trying to deprive the people of their hard-earned money by luring them through newspaper advertisements.

He said that the housing schemes developers were not authorized to advertize for sale of plots till they had obtained the no objection certificates from the housing authorities concerned.

The government, he said, would amend the laws of the housing schemes making it mandatory for the developers to mortgage the prescribed percentage of plots with the authority approving the scheme.

The plots would be released after the completion of the development of housing schemes. The government would also prescribe a limit for the sale of forms for housing schemes in accordance with the number of plots, he added.