ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) put the successive governments` declarations regarding shelter to the shelterless to test by asking the incumbent federal and provincial governments on Monday to provide it the budgetary allocations earmarked for low cost housing for the dwellers of katchi abadis right from 2001 to 2015.

Not just the allocations, the directive, issued by a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, also asked how much of the funds had been utilised, if not diverted to other purposes.

It also requires the respective governments to submit in concrete terms the timeline during which they expected to achieve their plans of providing sheltertothoseinneed.

`It is discrimination of the worst form where lowincomeemployeesofthe CapitalDevelopment Authority (CDA) get housing facility while ordinary labourers are forced to live in the open in this hot and humid weather,` remarked Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, noting the Constitution envisages equal rights to the ordinary citizen and the prime minister.

The bench was hearing a petition by Advocate Abid Hassan Minto and his son Bilal Minto seeking a declaration that the Constitution binds theState to provide shelter and other amenities to the poor it evicts from katchi abadis. The petition arose from the bulldozing of the Sector I-11 katchi abadi by the CDA on July 30, leaving its estimated 10,000 inhabitants to their own devices.

After analysing the data asked for, the court would consider passing `an appropriate order` regarding the low cost housing schemes of the governments.

The five governments are expected to provide the data in 10 days, along with baseline data that shouldhighlightshortage ofhousingfacilitiesfor the low income group and distortion in respect of apparent disparity between the upscale housing for the affluent and the land being utilised for the low cost housing.

While postponing further proceedings for the week commencing from Sept 21, the Supreme Court said its Aug 26 interim order of restraining the capital administration from taking adverse action similar to July 30 bulldozing of Sector I-11 Katchi Abadi will remain effective.

Meanwhile, the activist, Tasneem A. Siddiqui, who was commissioned by the court to suggest a rehabilitation plan in view of 15-year experience of working for the dwellers of katchi abadis in Sindh, submitted his report.

It stated that katchi abadis are not an aberration but rather a phenomenon of government`s failure to provide housing. Instead of bulldozing such settlements, they should be regularised or resettled.

He recommended that the CDA or the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad immediately allot affordable land to the uprooted I-11 Katchi Abadi dwellers for resettlement, within eight km radius of their lost homes and with easy access to SabziMandi, their main source of livelihood.

A regulatory framework should be established within two months for the katchi abadis in Islamabad under the 1960 CDA Ordinance and based on the lines of the Punjab and Sindh Katchi Abadis Acts.

Since there is an over-supply of high-income plots in most sectors of Islamabad, report emphasized that a minimum number of plots, at least 30 per cent, be factored into all future planning and zoning of sectors for the low-income households.

In addition, two exclusively low-income sectors should be planned for the needy and the shelterless following the principle of incremental housing development.

The report also called for establishing land bank to prevent speculative property trading that drives up prices and crowds out low-income users.

CDA can approach the federal government for implementation of the 2014 Apna Ghar scheme launched by the government for providing 500,000 houses to the low income people.

Meanwhile the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) in a separate report asl(ed for a legislation on the 1(atchi abadis in Islamabad.

The report asked the apex court to review judicially the far too small five per cent quota for the destitute allocated in government schemes. The federal government`s own figures say about half the low income population lives in slums.

Likewise, the CDA should be directed to implement and if needed, frame rules to carry out the objectives of the National Housing Policy 2001.

In addition the regulators of housing societies must ensure that private societies make adequate provisions for low-income groups and destitute.