Illegal housing societies fleecing masses money

RAWALPINDI, Jun 11 (APP):Whole of their lives, people especially salaried class toil hard to meet their ends and save each penny to have a reasonable abode towards the end of their career.

But their desire of having a house dashed to ground when they fall prey to fraudulent elements attached to real estate business who befool the people by convincing them to invest their hard-earned money in housing societies, either lacking legal status or not having enough land.

Unfortunately, owing to weaker laws and their poor implementation, these mafias continue to flourish with a mushroom growth in Rawalpindi district as statistics show that out of over 550 housing schemes, around 79 have got all the legalities completed, while the rest are either fake or lack the required NOCs.

Though, the regulator has identified the illegal housing schemes, but could not initiate action against them as the relevant law calls for three years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 0.5 million against unauthorized and illegal housing schemes.

When contacted, RDA spokesman Hafiz Irfan said that the Authority was working to control such societies and in this regard, it had uploaded a list of “legal and illegal housing societies on its website” so that the people could be saved from investing in illegal schemes.

“Strict action in accordance with the law is being taken against such societies including demolishing of illegal buildings and issuing of notices to their administrations. As many as 42 legal notices were issued besides lodging nine FIRs against the rules’ violators during the last five months. Their 17 offices were sealed while 35 complaints in FIA Cyber Crime Wing for registration of FIRs were launched this year,” he said.

But, the ground situation is different as the department issues notices and gets FIRs registered against such societies when they seek electricity and gas connections.

These illegal housing schemes are rampant in Rawalpindi, Gujjar Khan, Taxila, Wah, Murree, Kotli Sattian and other areas.

“Majority of illegal housing schemes presently under our control were established by the administrations of then district and tehsil councils,” Hafiz Irfan informed.

“The RDA had requested Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to refrain private TV channels from airing advertisements of illegal housing societies,” he said.

Moreover, he said, the Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Director General of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had also been approached to block bank, social media accounts of such schemes.

With rapid urbanization, Rawalpindi city has also succumbed to unplanned development together with an acute failure of the administration to enforce the building bylaws.

As a result, irregular constructions have popped up and there is a growing trend of building residential structures on agricultural lands in the outskirts without obtaining requisite permissions.

“As far as our master plan is concerned, the authority hopes to complete it soon as a consultant has been hired who is working on four tehsils of Pindi in first phase,” the RDA spokesman said.

Another matter of concern is establishing the housing schemes in the suburbs of Rawalpindi city including Adiala Road, Chakri, Fateh Jang road, Taxila, Murree, Kalar Syedan and other areas on fertile agriculture land that would have cascading effects on food security in years to come.

“Scarcity of land and rampant use of fertile agricultural land for housing societies would lead directly to a major problem; a growing food crisis,” said former Director Soil Conservation Department Rawalpindi, Malik Ghulam Akbar.

“With urbanization and growing population, landowners who earlier used to rent out their land to small farmers for growing wheat and other food crops, are now bent upon developing housing societies for earning more money,” he remarked.

Ghulam Akbar said in an agro-based economy like ours, “we cannot afford to lose agricultural land and the government must impose restriction on construction of housing societies at fertile agricultural land.”

When asked about his point of view on this issue, the RDA spokesman Hafiz Irfan said there was a difference between agricultural land and vacant, barren areas. Obviously, the housing schemes were being developed on vacant, barren areas with exception to small pockets of land.

“Recent notifications of the Punjab Government about agricultural land are being fully implemented by RDA in processing private housing schemes,” he informed.

He also mentioned to differences between the Punjab Local Government Land Use Rules 2020 and Punjab Development Authorities Rules 2021 in terms of planning mechanisms and approaches.

“The Local Government Rules 2020 do not have provisions for peri-urban areas rather these provide limited option of site development zones,” he said. “Therefore, major cities where development authorities had been established, they should notify peri-urban areas for broad-based planning with the demarcation of parcels of land for specific uses including agriculture.”

Regardless of the efforts being made by authorities to control the rampant increase in illegal housing schemes, there was a need to frame a proper mechanism and strict laws to stop the initiation of a society before all the prerequisites are met so that the hard-earned money of masses could be saved.