RAWALPINDI, Nov 07 (APP):Tariq Mehmood Murtaza, Chairman of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), has warned the citizens against investing in illegal and unlicensed housing schemes, advising them to check the status of housing societies at the RDA’s Metropolitan Planning and Traffic Engineering (MP&TE) Directorate or on the RDA’s official website rda.gop.pk.
He informed that RDA was regularly conducting raids against illegal housing schemes and strict action in accordance with the law was being taken against the rules violators.
The Chairman said that the authority was enforcing the regulations against violators such as plazas, stores, schools, residential and commercial construction and other illegal land use encroachments on a daily basis.
Tariq Mehmood Murtaza asked the citizens not to invest in illegal and unauthorised housing schemes and check status of the housing societies before any investment.
The owners of the properties found constructing illegal residential cum commercial buildings without approval of map/No Objection Certificates (NOCs), in violation of Punjab Development of Cities Act 1976 and RDA Building and Zoning Regulations 2020 were imposed fines.
He said that the authorities concerned had been directed to take strict action against the rules violators without any discrimination.
Under new policy introduced to promote construction activities in the district, he said, the building plans were being approved in 30 days, approval of change of land use in 45 days and approval of housing schemes in 75 days.
The chairman said that during last financial year 1,600 maps of residential and multi-storey buildings were approved which was a record in the history of RDA.
He informed that the authority, implementing austerity measures as per the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar, had saved Rs189 million from its non-development expenditures.
To a question he said RDA was taking indiscriminate action against illegal housing schemes, adding, legal notices were issued to 307 housing projects, 91 challans and 112 FIRs were also registered since July 2018.
RDA had also sealed offices of 135 schemes while boundary walls and main gates of 61 illegal housing schemes were demolished besides removal of their billboards during the period.
One Window Operation Center equipped with modern facilities was set up in RDA to facilitate the citizens, he said and informed that the entire record of RDA’s State Management Directorate had been digitized while the work of process automation was also started.
The property dealers had also been warned against making investments or advertisements of illegal housing schemes. Strict action would be taken against illegal housing schemes and no one would be allowed to cheat the public, he said.
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