The issue of illegal houses came up in the last standing committee meeting. PHOTO: FILE
The housing ministry has started crackdown against the ‘illegally’ occupied government houses in Islamabad on the directions of a parliamentary body.
Sources in the ministry confirmed the crackdown saying they were focusing on the ‘illegally’ occupied houses in the ‘I’ category.
Deputy Secretary Estate Muhammad Saleem told The Express Tribune on Friday soon it will also be expanded to ‘H’, ‘G’ and ‘C’ type houses.
On May 6 officials of the ministry admitted before the Senate Standing Committee on Housing and Works that they only recently started scrutinising houses which are inhabited by people who are not ‘owners on file’.
The issue of illegal houses came up in the last standing committee meeting when it discussed the fire incident in the Estate Office at the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat, where, according to the ministry, about 80 per cent of record was burnt to ashes.
As per ministry’s record, about 3,800 government houses were requested by Pakistan People’s Party government’s prime ministers during their last tenure.
Deputy Secretary Estate Muhammad Saleem said, “We have currently about 19,000 applications in general waiting list.”
He revealed that according to a rough estimate about 3,000 houses in capital are illegally occupied in different sectors.
An officer who deals with court cases said, in many cases people break into the vacant houses and get stay order from the court adding that “about 50 cases are pending in various courts at the moment.
On April 8, 2013, the apex court instructed the ministry to review all the allotments made after March 7, 2013.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 10th, 2014.
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