Breakthrough in Islamabad's Bhara Kahu housing scheme

Senate panel discusses acquisition of land in Moza Tamma, Mohriyan

ISLAMABAD: An issue involving the route to a housing scheme in the Bhara Kahu area of the federal capital has been finally resolved and an agreement for its construction is expected to be finalised within a week.

This was disclosed during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Housing and Works. The committee met on Thursday with its chairman Mir Kabeer Shahi in the chair.

During the meeting, the committee was briefed on the status of the Bhara kahu Housing Scheme being built by the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF). The panel was told that an issue relating to a route had been resolved and an agreement for its construction is expected to be finalised within a week.

Hearing this, the committee decided to review the agreement at its next meeting. The parliamentary committee also took up an issue related to the forced procurement land in the Moza Tamma and Mohriyan areas of the federal capital as pointed out by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Kalsoom Perveen in the panel’s meeting last month.

Perveen claimed that the ministry was forcibly acquiring land in these areas from residents on 40-year-old rates to build a housing scheme for judges, lawyers and bureaucrats under Article 4 of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894.

FGEHF to launch phase-II of Bhara Kahu scheme

“The housing ministry holds no such authority to forcibly procure lands from the public,” she contended.

She said that while the law allows for forcibly procuring land for a public utility project such as dams or for emergency purpose, but to procure land and to evict people from their homes just to build a housing scheme was tyranny.

Perveen further said that the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) had acquired land from the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA). However, the Supreme Court barred the civic authority from taking the land back, so how could this land be taken from the public.

She suggested that at the next meeting of the committee, the minister of housing and works, CDA chairman, Islamabad’s chief commissioner and deputy commissioner are summoned along with other related officials to review this matter in detail.

At this, the FGEHF director general told the committee that the case was still being heard in court and that they can only provide a future course of action once the court gives its verdict in the case.

Shahi noted that the committee should refrain from issuing any instructions while the matter is sub-judice. He added that the issue can be examined in detail by the committee after the court pronounces its verdict.

Housing and Works Ministry secretary told the committee that the housing foundation had been trying to acquire the designated land peacefully. The committee also reviewed written petitions by citizens about eviction from houses owned by the federal government.

The housing ministry secretary said that in Islamabad, they had evicted illegal occupants from 530 of the 563 government-owned houses.

Senator Sajjad Hussain Turi pointed out that that around 12 commercial plots were allotted to some people in Sector G-13. Later, these plots were sold to some officers while the officers sold them on to some people and have not been given possession as yet. He added that these issues have been prevailing since 2009-10 and instructed to find a solution to the issue.  The housing foundation director general said that there was no room to allot plots in Sector G-13 and that they could only provide plots in some other housing schemes, adding that they did not have the authority to provide compensation.

The committee also reviewed a petition about the illegal occupation of a house in Sector G-13/1 owned by Baz Muhammad.

The committee’s chairman said that the owner of the house should not be evicted unless he was paid compensation for it.

Police employees yet to be evicted

Even though the government has claimed to retrieved possession of 530 government-owned houses in the federal capital, no decision seems to have been made to evacuate the 200 flats from the occupation of police officers in Abpara.

According to sources, a subsidiary department of the ministry of housing and works had evicted occupants from some 530 of the 563 government residences which had been illegally occupied for around 14 years. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2019.