DHA disowns DHA-City

LAHORE: The exact location and sponsorship of the DHA City-EME, a new housing project, launched on June 13 remain a mystery.

The issue came to the limelight when after a rigorous advertising campaign in local media, the DHA City officials failed to come up with satisfactory answers to queries about the location of the housing scheme.

While the advertisements appear to imply that the scheme is an initiative of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore, the DHA Lahore officials say they have nothing to do with it.

Mian Talat, the DHA Estate Agents’ Association president, said that a number of people had approached him with queries about the project. He said that they were misled by the advertisements into believing that it was a DHA Lahore project.

“I will contact the Lahore corps commander and seek his help in this regard,” he added.

Tajamul Hussain, a DHA spokesperson, told The Express Tribune that the authority had nothing to do with the DHA City housing project.

He said that the project was not a part of the DHA Lahore (situated in south Cantonment) and was an independent entity.

Atif Ahmed, a DHA City spokesperson, however, claimed that the DHA EME Sector was a component of the DHA. He said that the DHA had three sectors including the main DHA (in Cantonment), the DHA Lahore EME sector and the DHA Rehbour.

Ahmed said that the scheme was located near the EME Housing.

However, he could not specify the exact location and identify mozas and khasra numbers on a city map. Instead, he said the exact location would be announced after balloting for plots.

Raza Ibrahim, a DHA resident, said that the people behind the DHA City were trying to capitalise on the trust associated with the DHA’s name tag.    Zahid Hayat, another DHA resident, said that a number of people have been robbed of their life’s savings in the past.  He said that the authorities concerned should make sure that the housing schemes advertised in the media do not exist on paper only. Hayat added that many overseas Pakistanis might fall prey to such tricks.

DHA City EME sector has also launched a website www.dhacity.com, which claims that the scheme is “planned over thousands of kanals, has ultra modern town planning, superb living and recreational facilities, lush green public parks, elite educational institutions, lavish shopping malls and will eventually have the most ornate surroundings fortified by state-of-the-art infrastructure. It has 5-marla, 10-marla and 1-kanal plots on offer.”

The website states that the plots would be allotted through computerised balloting within three months of the deadline for application.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2010.