Benefiting the poor: Supreme Court orders survey for low-cost housing

Wants authorities to form task force to evolve policy

ISLAMABAD: The top court has asked the authorities to conduct a housing survey and chalk out a policy for establishing low-cost housing schemes for the poor.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court told the federal and provincial governments to assign a high-powered committee to the task for the benefit of the lower-paid citizens.

The court also directed the attorney general, the federal and provincial secretaries of housing and finance departments and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman to appear in person on January 1 next year with comprehensive reports.

The law secretary has been told to appear in person also and inform the bench about the legislative initiatives of the federal government for the welfare of the residents of slum settlements. The court specifically asked the respective finance secretaries to divulge how much the federal and the provincial governments could allocate for developing model housing schemes for the poor.

The directives came during the hearing of a petition by Advocate Abid Hassan Manto and his son Bilal Manto, calling on the state to provide shelter and other amenities to all citizens under the constitution.

The two-judge bench, comprising justices Dost Muhammad Khan and Qazi Faez Isa, heard the plea with concerns over the mode and manner employed to evict the residents of a shanty settlement in Islamabad’s Sector I-11 on July 30.

The top court also extended its interim restraining order on demolishing the slums in the federal capital.

During the hearing, Additional Attorney General Amir Rehman told the bench that federal and provincial representatives held a meeting on Wednesday and proposed a uniform policy on slums.

The bench, however, regretted that there had been no concrete proposals in the past four months.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th,  2015.