DHA Lahore Bahria Town Map Plots Houses Buy Sell Rent Property Prices

ISLAMABAD (February 08, 2011) : The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to launch a massive operation to evacuate its land and has demanded support from Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration and Islamabad Police in order to make this operation a success.

The decision to launch operation was taken in a meeting held on Monday with Chairman CDA, Imtiaz Inayat Elahi in the chair while Chief Commissioner Islamabad, Tariq Pirzada, senior officers of ICT Administration, Islamabad Police and other concerned departments also participated.

A Co-ordination Committee consisting of the representatives of CDA, ICT Administration and Islamabad Police was constituted to monitor the development regarding evacuation and recovery of land from illegal occupation. During the meeting Chairman CDA, Imtiaz Inayat Elahi apprised the participants that the land was acquired in 1960s. With the passage of time people started to encroach and built property on CDA land, he added.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has directed CDA to get the land vacated and start development work, the CDA chief said, adding that after apex court orders the CDA evacuated 300 kanals of land in Malpur area in addition to vast stretches of land in other areas of the federal Capital.

Elahi also informed the meeting that the operation was being conducted on regular basis in this regard, especially, clearing the right of way along Kashmir Highway. He said that a comprehensive strategy in this regard has been prepared to get the remaining land vacated.

He said that the media would be taken on board. He said that public notice has been published in the national media warning the encroachers to vacate the CDA land within 7 days. He said that the Supreme Court of Pakistan was being apprised on regular basis in this regard.

He said that CDA was reinforcing its Enforcement Directorate to execute the operation. He said that a system of awards was being formulated to acknowledge the efforts of the officers and officials participating in the operation. Chief Commissioner Islamabad, Tariq Pirzada assured the full support of ICT administration to CDA for evacuation of the land illegally occupied by people.

A special team would monitor the areas to facilitate the staff, Pirzada said, adding that the support of the locals should also be sought in addition to taking the media on board on the issue. He said that all out efforts would be made to get the land vacated. The representative of Islamabad Police also assured full co-operation in the operation saying that police would be fully participating in the operation as and when required.

PC for establishing land privatisation commission: releasing state-owned land for commercial purposes
ISLAMABAD (February 08, 2011) : The Planning Commission (PC) has proposed a land privatisation commission to release all the unproductive land owned by the state for commercial purposes. In its paper titled ‘new growth framework, it proposed that the government ownership of city-centre land needed to be reduced to strengthen the decentralisation to allow city planners adequate control over their land and resources.

The government ownership is retarding growth, therefore, land banks at provincial level be set up to release idle state-owned land in favour of dense mixed use places to encourage public-private partnerships. The current state of cities in Pakistan is abysmal and urban population is escalating at a rapid rate of 3 percent with the existing urban population of 60 million (36% of the total population).

The city dwellers do not have much say in the running of the city. But a great deal of involvement by the government bodies is apparent in taking managerial and administrative decisions. The prevalent confusion regarding how modern cities should be governed is growing acute. The lack of affordable space and poor commercial laws has hindered the growth of cities.

There is need that all legislative bodies must review rent laws and remove clauses which unjustifiably favour tenants and restrict the functioning of the rental market, zoning laws should be improved and made transparent and modernise land registration system by electronically recording all transfers of land title in a centralised data base.

Housing information system should be established to provide data on housing demand and supply from the district level to the national level. It should also include Housing Price Index and Housing Access Index with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Statistics. A regulatory body must also be established for property dealers to register themselves officially. Relax zoning and building regulations to enable dense development of housing and vertical expansion.

There is a need to reduce cost of construction by encouraging foreign developers to compete in the Pakistani market and facilitate research and development in low cost and energy efficient construction techniques. Increase access to housing finance through sound foreclosure laws and computerised credit information. Curtail growth of Katchi Abadis by using market based solutions to produce low income housing. The above stated issues need immediate reform efforts so that appropriate economic geography can help Pakistan grow better, the paper added.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) Board on Tuesday approved widely publicising its intentions to take over the land the CDA had acquired back in 1960s for developing the federal capital in line with the directions issued by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

According to the CDA spokesman, in Tuesday’s meeting of the board it was decided to give a seven-day notice to the illegal occupants of the CDA’s acquired land through widely published advertisement in the print media, asking them to give up the illegal occupation and hand over possession of the land to the authority.

The chunks of such already acquired by the CDA back in 1960s is scattered all over the area declared as Islamabad Capital Territory. Some of these areas were acquired and all sorts of compensations according to the laid down policy and terms and conditions were already paid, but the CDA let the acquired portions of land be in the possession of the then occupants for agricultural purposes. But there are some parts of the acquired land for which the compensation was paid for the land but the settlement for the ‘built up property’ was left to be settled at a later date.

Whether the reasons for not settling the issue completely at that time may be but now it has become a very serious issue to deal with because the CDA never monitored and prevented any addition to the built-up property on the acquired land. As a result the claims of built-up property on these chunks of land, acquired back in 1960s, have multiplied manifolds as compared to what originally were there.

Sources in the CDA told ‘The News’ on the condition of anonymity that the biggest chunks of such acquired land were in Malpur where 3,532 acres of land and in Kuri where 1,489 acres of land were still under adverse possession.

The sources told ‘The News’ in addition to the ones located in Malpur and Kuri, other sizeable tracts of acquired land in Zone-IV include 874 acres of land in village Rehara, 450 acres in village Sehana, and 400 acres each in Lakhwal and Pandori villages respectively. “Only this forms almost 7,545 acres of acquired land scattered in Zone-IV while there are many more smaller land holdings acquired by the CDA in Zone-IV too,” the sources said.

However, the sources said that those are the pockets of acquired land still under adverse possession in Zone-I, which forms the ‘sectoral area’ of the federal capital, to be developed by the CDA.

“The inability of the CDA to get these portions of already acquired land in Zone-I from adverse and illegal possession is seriously hindering the pace of development of the federal capital. The illegal occupants, be those the actual inhabitants from whom the CDA had acquired the land back in 1960s and let them keep the possession till the time these parts are needed for development or the ‘qabza groups’, which have somehow managed to grab the land already acquired by the CDA, have become too powerful and had been easily twisting the arms of the CDA to bring the authority to accept their terms under which the authority has paid the compensations, both in cash and land/plots, to these illegal occupants twice or even thrice for the same land and built up property!” the sources said.

The sources said that the big tracts of land in Zone-I, still under adverse possession include 991 acres in village Bhokra, 450 acres in Mera Sumbal Aku, 268 acres in village Chahan, 200 acres in village Dhreek Mori, 200 acres in village Badia Samt Khan and 150 acres in village Mera Sumbal Jaffar.

“This around 2,259 acres of acquired land still under adverse possession has prevented the CDA to carry out any development in sectors E-12, I-12, I-11 and F-12. And there are many more smaller chunks of acquired land which are still under adverse possession or in the possession of ‘qabza groups’, who, in majority of cases, have grabbed the land in the name of mosques, graveyards, madrassas, shrines of unknown saints or Imambargahs,” the sources said.

The sources in the CDA said that there is a lot of euphoria in the authority as they are confident that in light of the directions passed by the Chief Justice, the authority would find the law fully on their back, something which has always prevented them from carrying out any meaningful attempt or action to take over the possession of the acquired land from the illegal occupants, ‘qabza groups’ and the squatters.

“In the past these illegal occupants, on getting information about any such impending operation by the CDA would immediately rush to the lower courts and get a ‘stay order’ against the CDA’s operation. And then a never-ending litigation in the lower court would start. But this time CDA bosses believe that the lower courts would not be granting such ‘stay orders’ so easily in light of the directions passed by Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry himself to the CDA to recover the acquired land from adverse possession,” the sources said.

LAHORE: Lahore High Court Justice Umar Ata Bandial on Friday extended stay against the recovery of capital value tax (CVT) from the employees’ old-age benefits institution (EOBI) and its officers until February 22.

The judge also gave time to the Punjab government law officer to file his reply by the next hearing.

The petitioner, EOBI had challenged the imposition of CVT by the provincial government under section 6 of the Punjab Finance Act, 2010.

The judge had already restrained the tax department from taking coercive measures for the recovery of CVT from the institution, and sought replies from the Board of Revenue and other respondents.

The petitioner’s counsel, Mansoor Usman Awan, submitted that the CVT had first been levied by the federal government under section 7 (pf) of the Finance Act, 1989. He said that after the 18th Amendment, the power to collect CVT had not been transferred to the provinces and this was apparently the first demand and recovery notice sent by the provincial government through the Board of Revenue to a statuary body.

Awan argued that section 6 of the act imposed CVT on transfer of immoveable property by a person, which did not include a statutory corporate body like the petitioner, and pertained to transfer between members of a family which again was not a transaction undertaken by the petitioner (EOBI) as a transferee from the Ministry of Defence.

He requested that the impugned notice issued to the petitioner should be declared unconstitutional and without lawful authority.

ISLAMABAD: Capital Development Authority (CDA) has started working on a plan to launch a new residential sector on the instruction of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, sources told Daily Times on Thursday.

They said CDA’s new Member Planning Tahir Shamshad had called a meeting of officers concerned to discuss the proposals regarding launching a new residential sector in federal capital. After finalising the proposal, CDA will send the to the prime minister for approval, they added.

They said Director General Planning Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu, Hafiz Ehsan and other officers participated in the meeting that discussed requirements for launching a new residential sector. The meeting also discussed the possibilities to generate funds for launching the new sector. The meeting said if once a project would be started it should not be stopped due to shortage of funds.

Gilani had instructed the CDA management during his visit to CDA headquarters to open a new residential sector. The prime minister assured the management that he was ready to help out CDA regarding its launching, they added.

They said for the last 22 years CDA had not opened any proper residential sector, as in sector I-15 the plots were of almost same size and it was not possible to complete it in near future. Earlier, Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation, an ancillary department of Ministry of Housing had launched sector G-14 in 2004, but it was not a CDA project.

In 2006 CDA had started considering seven new sectors including F-13, D-13, E-13, C-13, C-14, C-15 and C-16, of which it was decided to open sector C-14 through a joint venture with a private company but the proposal was also delayed, the sources maintained. They said presently only eight percent residents of the federal capital were living in their own houses and remaining were either in rented or in the government accommodations and dreaming to have their own house. They said over 35 percent residents of the federal capital moved to housing societies located in Zone II and V and some to Bhara Kahu and nearby residential colonies located in Zone IV, as CDA did not open a proper residential sector since a long time. They said if CDA managed to open a new sector and complete it in time, it would be one of its biggest achievements.

QUETTA – Speaker Balochistan Assembly, Muhammad Aslam Bhootani has revealed that Prime Minister House is exerting pressure on Balochistan government to sell land to Arab Sheikhs in his constituency in district Lasbela near coastal highway.
He warned that people of Balochistan would resist if the proposed land was sold to Arab Sheikhs. Addressing a Press conference here at Quetta Press Club, he said that Chief Minister Balochistan had always raised voice for the rights and resources of Balochistan after formation of his government with the support of all coalition partners.
He recalled that previous government had allotted 70,000 acres of land to a Federal institution along coastal highway of Balochistan which was largely opposed by the local people and after hectic efforts of Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Muhammad Aslam Khan Raisani the agreement was cancelled.
Bhootani said that once again thousands of acres of land near coastal highway were being sold to Arab Sheikhs belonging to UAE and Prime Minister House is asking the Balochistan Government for signing the deal.
‘Summary of allotment was prepared over night by Revenue Department and it was dispatched to Chief Minister Balochistan for approval’, Bhootani added.
He said that people had shown their anger protesting over the proposed plan because they were living there since centuries.
‘We would not permit anybody to sell the land of our people’, Speaker added.
Responding to a question, Bhootani said that it was correct that Arab Sheikhs were paying for the cost but Balochistan’s vast area was not for sale.
‘People of Balochistan particularly people of Hub have apprised their reservations to provincial and Federal governments and we hope that Chief Minister who always protected the rights would oppose the moves of Prime Minister House’, he added.
He also demanded of the Prime Minister to review his decision and cancel the proposed plan of selling lands to Arab Sheikhs.