LAHORE – The government has failed to force the management of the Education Housing Society, one of the biggest housing scandals, either to provide the plots to the affectees or return their hard-earned money. FIRs have already been registered against the perpetrators. More than 4,500 affectees, including the Pakistani expatriates, are waiting for the allotment of their plots, who have been given just forged files of plots by management.
The affectees said that the bogus land developers, who were the noted educationists as well as the government serving employees, have deprived innocent plot seekers of their over Rs1 billion by selling them forged papers around seven years ago. The fraudulent owners of the Education Housing Society fleeced the public and managed to escape along with hard-earned money of poor people without giving them the possession of their plots. When contacted, an official of the special cell of the Punjab CM Secretariat, requesting anonymity, informed The Nation that these one or two bogus housing schemes fell under Islamabad jurisdiction.
After receiving complaints regarding bogus schemes, the CM complaint cell forwarded the cases to federal anti-corruption department. “Mostly we receive complaints regarding settlements of plots, where more than one owner claims ownership of those plots. We send such cases to the Secretary of Cooperative Societies, who resolve these issues,” the official said. He said several housing schemes are launched without government registration, which is unlawful. There is duty of concerned TMO, DCO or LDA to probe such schemes and take action against them.
He pointed out that as per the new-amended law of 2010, when an agricultural land is converted into a housing scheme, the land developers have to pay some fee. But several housing schemes did not pay their fee. Talking in details about the fake Education City, Raja Abbas Ali, a worker at a factory, said that he and his family got about five plots booked in the Education Society and paid over Rs1.5 million in instalments. When they found the scheme a fraud they traced other affectees and sent an application to Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif for investigation.
