Court orders Malir Development Authority to punish lazy contractor

Work at housing project has not started since 1997.

KARACHI: After 15 years, Ahmed Hussain Hamidi may finally see his house built.

For three years – 1997 to 2000 – Hamidi thought his house was being built. After he booked a 120-square-yard plot in a housing project started by the Malir Development Authority (MDA), he regularly paid the Rs3,000 monthly instalment for 30 months apart from the development charges asked by the contractor from time to time.

But he was in for a shock when he went to visit the site of his future home in Scheme 25 of Murad Memon Goth, Shah Latif Town. Not even the plinth was laid. From 2000 to 2010, he tried to push the contractor and the development authority to start working on the project. When nothing worked he decided to take the authority to court.

For the house, Hamidi has paid Rs194,500 out of a total of Rs430,000, including a loan from the House Building Finance Corporation.

When the petition was taken up for hearing at the Sindh High Court on Friday, the MDA’s lawyer, Iqbal Khurram, said that they had let out the development contract and the court should take action against the contractor on its own.

Taking exception to his statement, Chief Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Syed Muhammad Farooq Shah noted that it was the Malir authority’s duty to take action against the contractor.

The MDA was ordered to do this and report back to the court by the next hearing.

If no action is taken, the court will consider that the MDA is working in connivance with the contractor and will then pass appropriate orders. The bench then adjourned indefinitely.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2012.