Masood said the owners and the builders had violated the undertaking furnished by them on stamp papers. PHOTO: FILE
FAISALABAD:
The Special Planning wing of the district government has stopped the construction of 25 buildings and sealed 18 others on charge of violation of building by-laws and departure from approved plan.
Cases were registered against the builders and the owners on Tuesday. Notices in this regard were also issued.
District Officer (Special Planning) Khalid Masood told to The Express Tribune that the 43 buildings had been declared illegal in a Special Planning survey held between April 1 and April 15.
The survey, he said, had been conducted after a number of complaints were received by the district coordination officer (DCO) pointing to several buildings being constructed in residential areas in violation of zoning policies. The complainants had also pointed to various high-rise buildings under-construction without approval of plan.
He said the DCO had asked all the four tehsil municipal administrations- Lyallpur Town, Madina Town, Iqbal Town and Jinnah Town- to survey the commercial plazas and buildings.
Masood said the tehsil municipal officers found illegal plazas in Jinnah Colony, Ghulam Muhammadabad, Jhang Road, Chen-One Road, D-Ground, Harriyanwala Chowk, Kashmir Road, Sanat Singhwala Road and Koh-i-Noor Town. He said the owners and builders had not obtained a no-objection certificate from the authorities concerned. In some cases, he said, extra floors were being constructed in violation of the original map.
Masood said the owners and the builders had violated the undertaking furnished by them on stamp papers at the time the building plans were submitted.
He said penalties against violators included blacklisting them from future projects. He said the cases would be referred to the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) for fraud.
He said that notices had been issued to the violators under Sections 32 (1) and 146-D of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance-2001.
Masood said the survey also revealed that over 2,000 shops had been set up in several residential areas of the city without approval or payment of commercial fees. He said the status of most buildings had not been converted from residential to commercial.
Action would be taken against them in the next phase after the violators of the 43 buildings were dealt with, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 24th, 2013.
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