WHY WE NEED HOUSE/PLOT WITH IFS AND BUTS?

(Anwar Baig, Islamabad)

Making houses, the flats for the shelter less and the needy is a constitutional demand and the government is pledged with the people to provide the shelter less and the needy a house or the flat in the country.

However, if it is not managed on the scientific basis it is a lucrative business for the land mafia, the land grabbers and the property dealers who have played a major role in getting all most major shares in the previous housing schemes launched by the government.

Apparently it looks nice that the government is going to provide the shelter to the shelter less and application are demanded on the basis of first come first have or draw schemes that both are rubbish and do not meet the prerequisite to help the needy in the society who have/ had no shelter nor have the plot to go for the house building on heavy interest rates for the poor along with auctions and mortgaging of the properties if not paid on time.

In all the previous schemes apparently the poor looked like the beneficiary with holding the house or the flats or the plots but it was just a show piece and had a property dealer behind for the basic investment because of the dirty policies of the rulers for the poor and the needy. Thus the government posed it well done performance for the shelter less but the needy remained on the footpath or without the shelter because of his poor conditions he did not meet for the installments or for the earnest money at the time of booking.

The government did not care for the agony or the problems of the sky-tented people in the country because it did not have any relation with the poverty, deprivation, suffering nor the economic crisis of the poor people.

The proper and the scientific method for the allotment of the plots, the flats or the houses were to manage the schemes on the basis of one plot or the house or the flat for the one family with strict conditions that one has to prove that he/she had no plot, house or the flats in the country nor he/she is the partner with his family or might having share in case of death or sale or other circumstances.

But it was never practiced and the majority of the plots, houses or the flats were allotted to undeserving not once but twice and thrice even.

It led the beneficiaries to make them millionaires by launching their housing schemes such as in the Rawalpindi Islamabad Housing Scheme, launched at Loibher, Rawalpindi, by the government of the Punjab in 2007 under the title of the Punjab Journalist Housing Foundation Act of 2004.

The said scheme had more than 1600 Kanals of government land for the journalists but it was allotted to the loved ones who had been friendly with the PMLN government and their lobbied Unions, declared illegal entities by the court.

This sort of disinterested and mismanagement of the government let the union Mafia to play their roles and allot the plots to their loved fellows including the allotment of more than 103 plots to the unknown or the Benami or the unidentified people.

These all dirty and illegal practices were fully covered by the Punjab government since the chairman of the foundation was the chief minister of the Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif who never bothered to listen the 400 denied journalists.

It was the case of looting of the government land worth, 12.8 billion that still waiting for the decision, where the denied and the most deserving journalists would be heard and counted for their concerns perhaps.

As I have already said that if the schemes are not managed on the scientific basis these would naturally benefit the looters or the land mafias and the same had happened here in the Rawalpindi Islamabad Press Club Housing Scheme at Loibher where the allotted were so eager to sell their houses or the plots that they started advertising their properties through all the media channels and the plots or the houses whose dues were even unpaid, were sold to the third party.

It was an undeniable evidence of doing the unscientific help to the helpless and the needy that never helped the deserving.

It was a major crime done with the kind considerations of the Punjab government, the then chief minister and all the members of the board of directors who damn care for the property of billions, thrown away to the land mafia in the name of helping the deserving but on just unscientific basis that damaged the government worth billions and let the deserving remained on the waiting list or on the footpath.

The agony of such schemes if not managed appropriately did not end just here but opened more doors of corruption as the beneficiaries in the Media Town at Loibher including the millionaires and the billionaires who had already their house, bungalows worth billions were allotted plots as the shelter less and the needy. Among the beneficiaries were some who had more than one plots or the house or the flats including holding of three plots or applied for the third time.

But if these schemes were carried on the scientific and the appropriate basis by having verified the deserving candidates who had no plots or the flats or the houses at all the said houses or the plots would go to the deserving and they would never sell nor claim for the other plots or the houses in any scheme for ever and each year the deserving could be included in the schemes by resolving the issue of the shelter.

I strongly condemn the stereotype helping schemes of the people by calling the applications, first come first have ”how the first come have the right to be considered as the most deserving unless he/she is not verified through the proper methodology that he/she had no plot or the house nor have any such a benefit in the nearer future at family levels”.

I, thus request the PM who fought for about 22 years against such people and their lobbied and family planning schemes and programmes to take care of such plans and the programmes which would never help the deserving but make the puppets the millionaires and the deserving on the waiting list or on the footpath, unfortunately.

I also request the PM for making such schemes fair, free and transparent by adopting the way by verifying the deserving at the UC levels where he/she cannot deny the facts, have or not, and simply verified at gross root levels with having least mistakes or biasness.

Anwar Baig
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