Islamabad: Undeserving allottees to lose I-15 plots

[Naveed Yaseen]

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) Board has decided to cancel plots of around 300 people, who had undeservedly secured plots in I-15 from the government employees’ quota three years ago, it’s learnt.
The CDA’s faulty plot allotment procedure is stated to be behind the irregularity.
The CDA had launched I-15 in 2005 for low-income groups, fixing 54 per cent plot quota for general public, 20 per cent each for settlers and government employees, five per cent for its employees and one per cent for journalists of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Some 300 people, however, got alloted plots from the government employees’ quota due to poor scrutiny of their applications. The CDA even issued allotment letters to them. These allottees paid installments worth millions of rupees to the authority over the last three years. With the cancellation of allotment of their plots, the CDA will refund them the money.
Meanwhile, development work in I-15 has yet to take off even three years after the sector’s launch.
Al-Khan Construction Company was hired for the purpose in 2005 but the CDA cancelled its contract after one year for being inefficient. No constructor has been hired for development work since. An official said that the project cost could escalate due to delayed work.
He said that the CDA had launched the sector to provide people from low-income groups with their own shelter in Islamabad.
He said that only people whose annual income was below Rs 150,000 were entitled to plot allotment in the sector.
He said that the I-15 launch had been made in view of growing cost of housing and acute shortage of residential units in the town.
The official said that Islamabad currently faced a shortage of 40,000 housing units. “The capital city has 70,000 houses against the need for 110,000 housing units. Every year, demand for houses goes up by 5,000 units,” he said.
He acknowledged that inordinate delay in the development of I-15 and other sectors would further increase the shortage of houses. The situation will further up the house rent in the city, he said.
The official said that house shortage had affected people earning Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 a month the most because getting a house on a reasonable rent was fast getting out of their reach.
He said that early completion of development work in new sectors could ease the problem. fazal sher

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