Daily Times

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) decided to take legal action against the housing societies that are declared illegal while they are advertising the illegitimate business on social media platforms. The decision was taken after the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) had approached the PTA to take some sort of action under the prescribed law. The PTA said in statement that initially the direction was issued by Lahore High Court (LHC) in a writ petition vide its order of March 30, 2022 with respect to controlling advertisements of illegal housing societies on digital/social media.

“All such housing societies, operating without proper NOC of the concerned quarters, are advised to refrain from advertising the illegitimate business on social media platforms, else the authority will initiate action as per its mandate under the law,” the PTA’s statement reads. Interestingly, the LDA mentioned no details regarding the declared illegal housing societies which is tantamount to adducing the citizens as it is difficult for everyone to physically visit the LDA office to check the legal status of any society before investing their money for desiring purposes. The sources in the PTA said that the application of LDA was received by the Ministry of communication which has been forwarded afterwards. The sources said that the it is, perhaps being done, to control the mushroom growth of illegal housing societies in big cities especially in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Earlier, the Ministry of communication was also approached by Rawalpindi district administration to impose a ban on the entry and exit passages of the motorways to private housing societies.

“According to a survey, there are 318 illegal private housing societies in the Rawalpindi district followed by 98 in Attock and 12 in Chakwal. The owners of these illegal housing societies have sold thousands of files to gullible citizens who will wait for decades to get possession of their plots in these societies as they will remain unregulated/unapproved due to existing building byelaws,” explained an official at the Rawalpindi district administration.

The Punjab government has now issued instructions to preserve agricultural land and green areas. In the light of these instructions, master planning of the districts will be initiated and no housing society will be allowed/approved until the site development zones for residential purposes are notified under Punjab Local Government Land Use Plan (Classification, Reclassification & Re-Development) Rules 2020. Moreover, there was the likelihood that these private housing societies will use the permission as a marketing tool to sell their files and plots and will swallow remaining green areas of the Potohar region.

The Rawalpindi Commissioner Noorul Amin Mengal said there was a dire need to protect the green areas around the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad but illegal housing societies not only reduced the green areas but also created unnecessary traffic rush on main arteries. “Approximately, 20,000 kanals of a housing scheme produced 100,000 vehicular traffic which will create bumper-to-bumper traffic on motorways,” he said.