Daily Times

Housing & Works Ministry’s Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) has illegally constructed 66 residential blocks in two sectors.

Documents from Building Control Department of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) revealed illegalities in the said project of the PHA foundation.

PHA started residential schemes in I-16 and I-12 sectors without getting approval from the Building Control Department for the said residential project.

The documents revealed that the PHA foundation even after getting notices from the civic agency did not follow the legal way and pursued construction having lack of legal cover from CDA. The documents added that the PHA has completed 90 percent of construction work and 98 percent plots inside the residential schemes have also been booked people.

According to the website of the PHA, B type total apartments in I-16/3 are 672 while E type apartments in same sector are 912. In another residential scheme in I-12/1, total apartments of D-category are 2,400 while E-category apartments are 800 in total. Their official website posted a notification which revealed that in total out of 1,584 in I-16/3 residential scheme, 1,367 apartments are already booked while 217 apartments await bookings.

It’s pertinent to mention that the said foundation has been established to prevent shortage of houses inside the country on reasonable prices for general costumers as well for the employees of the government.

Raheel Junejo from CDA’s Building Control Department, while talking exclusively to Daily Times said that PHA has no legal authority to pursue a residential project without getting a map approval certificate from the building control department of CDA. He added that we have served a couple of notices to PHA to stop their residential schemes in I-12 and I-16 but they didn’t respond to the notices and continued their project. He added that while violating the laws of CDA, we issued notices to the said foundation to stop their work but they didn’t stop and finally we sealed the residential blocks but until now, they didn’t stop the construction.

Every residential scheme inside the capital is bound to get a layout plan from CDA’s Planning Department to carry their construction work inside the capital.

CDA Planning Wing Official Faraz Malik, also while talking exclusively to Daily Times said that PHA didn’t get layout plan from the Planning Wing of CDA to carry out their work. He added that we didn’t give them a layout plan but still their construction work is in process.

An official of the enforcement wing told Daily Times that we will submit a final report to the high brass of CDA regarding these illegal constructions by PHA.

Published in Daily Times, December 21^st2018.