ISLAMABAD: Housing scheme in limbo despite huge collections

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

Sibghatullah Virk
Federal Government Employee Housing Foundation collected billions of rupees from government employees in the name of a housing scheme in Bahara Kahoo and the collected capital remained in the Foundation's account but applicants find no way to get reward of their heavy payments made to the FGEHF a year before.

Federal Government Employee Housing Scheme finds no place even after one year of its inception and project gets no exposure to the public while poor applicants very rightly question the scope of their payments made to the Foundation.

The housing scheme in the vicinity of the federal capital near Barra Kehoo was started in August 2009 for federal government's employees and had been charged Rs 50,000 each. Billions of rupees were collected but remained with the Foundation while the matter has been lying pending with different institutions simultaneously.

National Assembly's Standing Committee for Housing and Works claims that the land had been acquired at desired rates whereas the federal minister claims that the procedure had been transparent and the land had been acquired at market rates.

The story does not finish here as it moves ahead with a new twist since Capital Development Authority did not issue no-objection certificate to the Foundation to move forward. The process had been started in hurry without fulfilling basic formalities but applicants had been called and money received from them as a result of which the poor employees seem to be very disappointed. The project is one of the delayed projects while a few were launched 18 years ago. For example, Phase-II Islamabad (Sectors D-12, E-12, I-8 and G-11) was launched in 1992, Phase-III Islamabad (Sector G-13 & Sub Sector G-14/4) in 1996, Phase-IV Islamabad (Sub-Sectors G-14/1,2,3 & G-15/3,4) on 16th December 2003 and Phase-V Islamabad (Housing Scheme for Low Paid FG Employees in Sub-sectors G-11/3, 4) was launched in April 2005.

Similar is the case with the projects in other cities as FGE Housing Scheme at Regi Lalma Peshawer was launched in 1995 and Phase-I Karachi in 1992 whereas Phase-II Karachi was launched in 1999. "Who will be responsible for this delay as our money is losing worth with every hour passing and we don't know about the future of our payments since there is no ray of hope in the near future," said one of the applicants. If foundation gets NOC from CDA and allotment starts who would be able to pay heavy development charges which have been increasing day by day and how a government worker, who gets 2 or 3 millions as his life asset in the form of pension at the time of his or her retirement will manage to pay more than his complete assets, he added.

It is worth mentioning that the project finds no space on the Foundation's web portal and nothing is disseminated by the officials for the applicants regarding the project. This makes the condition more troublesome as poor government employees find no news about his precious amount lying with the Foundation's account. A source told this correspondent that the sites will be allotted on first-come-first-served basis which again will curtail merit since a junior guy can get his place and a senior old employee could lose the very chance of finding a small piece to live on in the feeble part of his life.