Horde of fake housing schemes

Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has geared up its ongoing operation against illegal housing schemes in the district. According to the RDA spokesman, the Metropolitan Planning and Traffic Engineering (MP&TE) Directorate of RDA has issued notices to the owners of two private illegal housing schemes and 11 illegal subdivisions of the land namely Ittehad Town. As said, the department has filed an FIR against illegal housing societies and taking action against unlawful advertisements and marketing campaigns in that regard. The authorities also requested the FIA Cyber Crime Wing to take legal action against the misleading advertisements of illegal housing schemes which have looted the millions of rupees hard earned money of innocent citizens through fake advertisements and false claims.

The real estate sector has shaped into a most lucrative business that is enormously spreading its jaws all across the country without any control, monitoring, or regulation from the relevant government departments. The cabal of land developers and real estate tycoons used to buy barren land from poor masses on meager prices, and propagated it as model town, and luxuries housing societies in suburbs of the major cities, without complying with essential regulatory requirements and environmental and social codes set for such colonies in the country.

Unfortunately, numerous people invested their lifelong savings or pension into such flimsy schemes and a majority of them could not get their dream home because of fraudulent schemes, construction delay or other legal issues which made their lives miserable. The situation is worse as the influential property tycoons have nexus within the political circles, destroying administration while each of them hired a platoon of lawyers to engage police and courts thus poor masses are compelled to suffer at the hands of those white collar criminals.

Realistically, the devilish housing societies business has flourished unhindered over the past decades, and countless cases of fraud, fake housing societies, and non-deliverance of projects occurred so far but the government authorities did nothing to permanently forestall such incidents except making money by issuing NOC and LOP without evaluating onground situations and environment.

The government must set a transparent and time-bound procedure, fix land prices, and development charges, along with ensuring the provision of utilities, and essential recreational and social amenities for each society/ project so that the real estate mafia neither dodges the public nor escapes the writ of the state in any case. Wherein, this uncontrolled monster could be kneel down in accordance with the state and the public needs in the future.