ISLAMABAD: Victims and residents of housing societies on Friday urged the government to conduct transparent forensic audits and impartialinquiriesinto allhousing societies, allegingnegligence,irregularities and failure on the part of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and the Cooperative Department.

Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club, the residents and affected people of various societies, including Jinnah Garden, Sohan Garden Phase I and II, Capital Enclave, Kashmir Housing Society, the Life Residencia and Gulberg demanded that the government conduct transparent forensic audits and impartial inquiries into allhousing societies.

They demanded that the authorities should investigate land ownership, plot allotments, financial transactions,commercialisation and administrative decisions, and bring those responsible to justice.

They said there are two major categories ofissuesin 41 cooperative housing societies: the first involved allottees who despite paying money were running from pillar to post to get possession ofplots. The second are people who live in these housing societies but are not getting promised facilities.

They called for verifiable possession of plots to be handed over to all affected citizens within three months.

Where the provision of plots was not possible, they demanded compensation at prevailing market rates.

They also called for a uniform legal framework and policy for affected housing societies and an end to the alleged harassment, intimidation and pressure tactics against residents.

Participants of the press conference including Naila Jabeen, Syed Zafarullah Pasha, Sheikh Naseer, Ghaznafar Ali Chaudhry Majid, Malik Zia and others urged the authorities to take immediate notice of the situation and ensure justice.

They said the basic objective behind establishing cooperative housing societies was to provide homes to ordinary citizens, working-class people, retired employees and overseas Pakistanis.

Unfortunately, they said, the life-long savings of people had allegedly been lost due to irregularities in severalhousing societies.

They said overseas Pakistanis had worked 18 hours a day and sent money to Pakistan with the hope of building homes in their own country.

However, upon returning home, many discovered that plots purchased in their names did not even exist on the ground.

Some citizens have been visiting government offices and courts for decades in their struggle to secure their rights.

They said residents had initially been promised basic facilities, schools, parks, greenbelts and commercial marketsin these housing societies.

However, they alleged that commercial plazas were being constructed and sold on land originally reserved for schools and parks.

They also expressed concern over the difficulties faced by ordinary citizens in approaching the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the judicial system.

According to representatives, water had been available at a depth of approximately 50 feet five years ago whereas drilling to a depth of around 300 feet was now required to access groundwater.

It is relevant to note here that manycooperative housing societies in Islamabad are accused of eating up amenity land. According to a probe of NAB Rawalpindi, housing schemes had sold 91,000 plots and files in excess of the available land or their approved layout plans (LoP) in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. In addition, nearly 20,000 memberships were allotted despite a complete absence of land. The NAB report pointed out that around 80,000 kanals was advertised and sold by housing schemes despite not being part of LoPs.

The CDA approves layout plan and NOC of all housing schemes (both schemes and cooperative societies) while ICT Cooperative Department deals with issues of cooperative schemes.

In the capital city, the majority of both said types of schemes violated their LoPs and engaged in overinvoicing, selling plots more than available land. Recently, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had stated that there are 150 unauthorised housing schemes, adding CDA teams were working on each of them.

`We will give these schemes an option of registration. We will bring them into our regulatory framework so they can fulfil deficiencies and remove illegalities. We will certainly take action and impose fines as well,` he said.