‘Developers of illegal societies to be penalised’

LAHORE:Punjab Minister for Law and Cooperatives Raja Basharat has said that those who developed illegal housing societies across the province would have to face punishment and on the directive of Prime Minister Imran Khan as protection to the savings of the poor people would be ensured.

He stated this while chairing a meeting of the National Coordination Committee for Housing, Construction and Development on Tuesday. The committee considered a plan of action to launch a crackdown on illegal housing societies in the province. Raja Basharat said that decades-old illegal societies had not been regularised so far and no action has been taken against anyone while savings of millions of people had sunk into these societies. He said that the committee would determine the causes of illegal societies and private and government officials involved therein.

The law minister sought a complete record of illegal societies across Punjab for the next meeting. Earlier, Punjab Local Government Secretary Noorul Amin Mengal suggested that for effective action, illegal societies should be divided into catagories, i.e. those fulfilling legal requirements, those non-fulfilling the requirements and other societies while steps should be taken to regularise the first category societies. It was informed that out of 596 illegal societies in LDA jurisdiction, 246 were established in green areas.

price hike: Minister for Industries and Trade Mian Aslam Iqbal has said regulation of supply-chain mechanism of essential items is imperative to overcome price hike.

The minister chairing a meeting of Punjab Agricultural Marketing Regulatory Authority (PAMRA) at CM’s office here on Tuesday decided to take steps for improving the situation of agri markets and sought a plan about the establishment of model markets at divisional level.

The DG Industries, DG PAMRA and others attended the meeting while PAMRA Chairman Naveed Anwar Bhindar briefed the participants about the organisational performance. Agriculture Minister Hussain Jehanian Gardezi and Economic Affairs Adviser Salman Shah were also present.

NGOs’: The Punjab government has cancelled registration of 200 NGOs. A report has been sent to the chief minister that the registration was cancelled as the NGOs could not present the records of funding and did not meet a standard of scrutiny process. In addition to that, hundreds of NGOs have also been put on the checklist.