After 35 years, PIDC plot owners await possession of land

Housing scheme is encroached upon by the land mafia

KARACHI: In Karachi, land is the most coveted commodity. Once considered a safe investment, prompting thousands of citizens devoted their life-savings for a small piece. Around that time, dozens of cooperative societies and housing schemes were established to facilitate these long-term investors. Those thousands have now lost their life earnings to encroachers.

Farhat Aijaz, a lonely 77-year-old woman is still waiting for the good news about the 240-yard residential plot for which she saved all her life and plans to gift to her daughter.

“In 1970 when I was 32-years-old, my husband who worked in the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) gave me the good news that he has applied for a plot in the organisation’s housing society,” she recalled, adding “Unfortunately I am still waiting for its possession.”

Aijaz wonders whether she will ever get possession of the plot for which she paid instalments for the past 40 years. “I have paid almost Rs150,000 for the plot,” she said, showing all  the receipts.

Another such plot owner, Sanjida Ansar, has been waiting for 35 years. “My husband gifted me this plot when we got married,” she remembers. “Since then, we are just paying but never get hold of it.”

Ansar wants to sell her PIDC plot so her son has money to start his own business. Unfortunately that is no more possible, as the land has been encroached upon.

Since 1970, more than 135 such housing societies were established in the suburbs of Karachi. Today, more than 70 have been encroached by a land mafia that enjoys official patronage.

PIDC employees are like the thousands of hapless members of societies who started paying up as early as 1976 for their dream home.  Over the years, they were asked to pay for internal development such as sewerage lines, electricity and gas connections. In a span of 35 years, what stands includes roads, a park, an electricity substation and a water pumping station. But no legal residents.

As many as 460 plot owners started construction on their plots but trouble began in 2009 when PIDC society registrar Ali Haider Baloch, who is also the secretary of the co-operative societies of Sindh, took over. He superseded the society and encroached upon the land.

According to the 1925 Bombay Act of Co-operative Housing Societies, any co-operative housing society which has corruption or one-third members of the society have complaints against the current managing committee, then the registrar and the housing society chairperson orders an inquiry into the matter. After three inquiries, they submit a report to the secretary, who then supersedes the society and conducts elections for a new committee within one year.

However, in the case of the PIDC, no such process has taken place. “We did not have any corruption in our society and none of the members had complaints against the committee too,” clarified PIDC secretary Tahir Ahmed Sheikh, who has been holding this position since 2009. Nevertheless, registrar Baloch went ahead and dissolved the society on January 15, 2010, after citing allegations that the plot holders had defaulted on payments. It may be added that the plot holders, who were allotted plots in 1976, hold documents proving that their dues were cleared.

Since then, a case has been going on in the Sindh High Court while an inquiry has also been conducted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) .

The inquiry report, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, also confirmed that illegal transactions in allotment, re-allotment and cancellation of plots were found. The housing society management, the cooperative department and the Sindh government were also found to be involved. As the investigations continue, NAB has imposed a ban on the execution of leases and sub-leases when it came to the sale of plots in this society.

Until then, the plot owners have sought help from the president, Rangers director-general, Chief Justice of Pakistan and the anti-corruption department.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd,  2015.