400 govt houses illegally occupied

Despite shortage of government accommodation, 400 residential quarters are being illegally occupied.

ISLAMABAD: Despite acute shortage of government accommodation in Islamabad, as many as 400 residential quarters are under illegal occupation of influential employees.

This information was provided to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Housing and Works by the Estate Office officials here on Wednesday.

The meeting was chaired by MNA Pervaiz Khan and attended by MNAs Nousheen Syed, Tochi Khan and Ghulam Hiader Samejo.

The Estate Office informed the committee that out of 16,734 government houses of different categories, around 400 houses were illegally occupied.

Out of these, the largest number -- 69 houses-- were occupied by police officials and 47 by officials of Islamic Research Council.

Other illegal occupants include employees of the Water and Power Development Authority, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and Pakistan Post.

Most of these illegal occupants have obtained stay orders from the courts and cannot be evicted till the decision of the cases.

The committee expressed surprise that employees of Islamic Research Council were also among the illegal occupants and directed the EO to use all means for getting them vacated.

The secretary Housing and Works blamed the situation on the incompetence of government lawyers who could not fight cases against high priced lawyers of the illegal occupants.

He said that a special committee of senate has also been formed to resolve the issue.

The committee recommended that the rental ceiling of government employees must be doubled and the ban on construction of new houses imposed in 1994 be lifted.

The secretary said that the lower employees from grade 1 to 16 had suffered the most as it was “impossible to rent a house in their salaries.”

“There was a crucial need for constructing A to E category houses. A grade 1 employee had a rental ceiling of only Rs1,900 which was totally insufficient to rent a house in Islamabad,” the secretary also said.

The government could save Rs300 million on rent payments annually by building its own houses for the employees, he added. The secretary told the meeting that the finance ministry had rejected the proposal to double the rent entitlement of the government servants.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2010.