LAHORE, Jan 20: The Punjab government finalized on Thursday the first legal framework for the private housing schemes, prescribing that only the schemes having at least 160 kanals of land would be approved.

The law was finalized at a meeting which was presided over by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and attended by Law Minister Raja Basharat, chief secretary Kamran Rasool, local government secretary Naguibullah Malik, finance secretary Salman Siddique and other senior officials.

According to official sources, the law has been framed by the local government department which would itself supervise the entire system of approval of the schemes. All schemes would either be approved by the tehsil municipal corporations or the development authorities.

They said every private developer would be bound to possess at least 80 per cent of the land on which he intended to develop the scheme and the government may acquire the remaining 20 per cent land for him under the land acquisition act.

The sources said another major step in the law has been taken to discourage the recent trend of misleading people with false newspaper advertisements by the private housing schemes. Under the new law those found giving misleading advertisements would face legal action.

They said the law has also prescribed time limit for the approval of the housing schemes by the government agencies. This has been done to prevent government agencies from exploiting genuine developers by creating unnecessary hurdles in the way of the schemes or using undue delaying tactics to blackmail them.

The sources said the law would soon be presented to the assembly for adoption.

Meanwhile, the chief minister said the new law was being introduced to promote the housing sector, to facilitate approval of new housing schemes and to protect the rights of land owners, their customers and people.

He said under the new law the private developers would be required to give total number of plots of the scheme and the method of their allotment in newspaper advertisements.

It would be binding on them to own the land on which they wanted to develop a housing scheme and possess at least 80 per cent of it.

The chief minister said legal action would be taken against those private developers found tempting people to buy their plots through false or misleading advertisements.He said it would be the duty of the tehsil municipal administration and other government departments to facilitate approval of the private housing schemes, fulfilling all requirements within the stipulated period.

The private housing schemes would be bound to follow the laid down standards regarding sewerage, sanitation and other amenities prescribed for them. The private developers would operate within the ambit of the new law and protect the rights and interests of people.

Approval of any private housing scheme would depend on the location of its land, completion time and information regarding the land under possession and a detailed construction plan.

The chief minister said the government would fully encourage private investment in the housing sector and all government departments would create facilities for them.

Raja Basharat and the local government secretary briefed the meeting on different aspects of the housing scheme.