‘25 unapproved housing schemes sealed in Faisalabad’

FAISALABAD: As many as 25 unapproved housing schemes have been sealed during the last two months here.

It was said by Faisalabad Development Authority Director General Sohail Khawaja while giving briefing to the parliamentarians during a meeting here on Monday. Special Assistant to CM Malik Umar Farooq, members of provincial assembly, Adil Pervez Gujjar, Latif Nazar, Shakil Shahid, Mian Khayal, Mian Waris Aziz and others were also present in the meeting. The FDA DG said that sale and purchase of plots in these housing schemes had also been banned.

He informed the meeting that 34 FIRs had also been got registered against the developers involved in illegal practice of town planning while 12 challans were also made against the defaulters besides issuing the 182 notices to the developers violating the building laws.

He said that the utility departments had also been moved letters against the 301 illegal and unapproved housing schemes for not providing utility services, ie, electricity and Sui gas, in the unapproved housing schemes. The DG informed that total recovery of Rs.35.41 million had also been made from the developers of town planning while recovery campaigns had also been accelerated to achieve the targets.

He explained the standards of planning housing schemes and said that preliminary planning permission was prerequisite for establishment of housing schemes having areas of 100 Kanal land or above besides technical approval of layout plan and finally sanctioning of scheme.

The DG said that the proposal had been approved by the governing body of the FDA to start the registration of developers of housing colonies to bring this matter in a organised system for ensuring transparency and regulations. He said that the defaulter developers could be made black listed to stop the illegal practice of housing scheme establishment. The parliamentarians assured their all-out cooperation regarding undiscriminating operation against the unapproved housing schemes.