By Ikram Junaidi ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: Thousands of federal government employees have been waiting for official accommodation in the federal capital, many for decades.

But the Estate Office says there were few takers when it offered the accommodation to 700 of them between March and August 2013 following a Supreme Court order.

Issued in March, the court order asked the Estate Office to allot government accommodation on `first-come-first-serve` basis. Those 700 were on the top of the General Waiting Lists of 19,100 applicants entitled to allotment of the 17,227 government houses in Islamabad, according to their grades.

Top Grade BPS-22 officers, however, can get a government house any time.

It was a surprise that only about 175 of the 700 accepted the offer of accommodation. But even more surprising is the Estate Office`s reluctance to offer the remaining 525 accommodations to the next in line.

`We fear we will be in trouble if someone goes to the court that he has been superseded in the allotment,` an Estate Office official explained to Dawn on the condition of anonymity In fact, the Estate Office management is reluctant to push out even the retired government servants who continue occupying official accommodations `because who will secure the house af ter they leave?` `Some government servants who applied for government accommodation as far back as in 1988 might get in 2014. The Estate Office is empowered to allot the accommodation to officers next in queue, but its management is reluctant to do that because someone among the 700 who did not respond to its letters offering the accommodation can go to court,` he said.

Hundreds of retired government servants and other unauthorised occupants are not asked to vacate government quarters because the Estate Office is unwilling to depute watch-men to look after the vacated houses till their fresh allotment.

But that attitude loses the government the rent amounting to five per cent of a genuine occupant`s salary.

Meanwhile, the needy government employees are made to hire houses for themselves.

`It is the duty of the Estate Office to allot them a government house as soon as it becomes available,` the insider said.

Professor Tahir Mahmood, President Federal Government College Teachers Association agreed with him.

`It is mandatory for the Estate Office to expedite the process of allotment when a house is vacated so that maximum number of government servants avail the facility,` he said.

Professor Deedar Ali Baloch of Islamabad Model College for Boys H-9 said he was appointed lecturer in 1984 and still waiting for government quarters.

`In contrast, my juniors who had links with political personalities and high-ups are comfortably settled,` he said.

Estate Officer Pir Ashraf said that because of the vacant post of secretary ministry of housing, most of the issues of ministry are not being solved.

`We have some allotment letters ready for delivery to the deserving. I am not in a position to decide the government servant next in the queue,` he told Dawn.

State Minister for Housing Usman Ibrahim is taking interest in following the lists but the confused thinking in the Estate Office was complicating things, according to an Estate Office official.

`Although updated regularly in terms of new entries, the Estate Office does not bother to inquire whether the government servants figuring at the top of the General Waiting Lists is dead, retired or still want government accommodation,` a ministry of housing and works of ficer said.

`Many officers of the federal ministries were retired prematurely, or moved out, following the devolution of the ministries,` he recalled.