May 30, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 29: A game of passing on the buck being played by the Ministry of Defence and the Punjab government threatens to ruin an investment of Rs30 billion in private housing schemes in the militarily sensitive area of Fatehjang, real estate sources told Dawn on Tuesday.

They said investors in the housing schemes have stopped paying instalments of their residential plots as the housing schemes’ land cannot be developed unless the local government granted them No Objection Certificate (NOC).

Tired of being made to run between the Defence Ministry and the Punjab government for the NOC, and losing the confidence of some 50,000 investors in their schemes, 12 real estate developers have formed an Association of Private Housing Societies (APHS) to fight jointly for the NOC.

Maj (retd) Makhdoom Hussain, president of the association, demanded that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz should resolve the quandary.

“We have been made a shuttle cock by the Punjab government and the ministry of defence who tell us to go and get the NOC from the other first,” said an APHS member.

“The confidence of our members (clients) can be restored only when the schemes get NOCs from the district administration,” he said.

The situation has added to the miseries caused to the real estate developers in Fatehjang by the “restrictions” put by the ministry of defence on habitation in the vicinity of Kala Chitta mountain, ostensibly because of sensitive installations there.

Land in Fatehjang area became attractive to investors after the government decided to build Islamabad’s new airport there.

APHS members, including Arain City Housing Scheme, Motorway City, Air City, State Life Cooperative Housing Society, Soan Garden, Hill View Society, Islamabad Cooperative Housing Society and Spinzer Agriculture Farms, reminded Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz that their schemes fall in his constituency and yet were being neglected by the district government.

Members of the association—-Raja Muhammad Asif (vice president), Qazi Shaukat Mehmood (vice president), Muhammad Nawaz Khan (vice president), Sami Ullah Akram (general secretary) and Shahid Mushtaq (secretary finance and information) demanded early completion of new airport in Fatehjang and improvement of infrastructure of the area.

According to a rough estimate over Rs30 billion have been invested in the private housing schemes, mostly by overseas Pakistanis.