CDGK employees witness long awaited balloting of plots

December 9, 2009
By Irfan Aligi

KARACHI: Long awaited balloting of plots for the City District Government Karachi’s (CDGK) was conducted on Wednesday.

Sindh Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani performed at a local hotel current balloting for 2400 plots on Wednesday. The balloting of plots was conducted for New Malir Housing Scheme-1 of Malir Development Authority (MDA) for the CDGK employees.

It is pertinent to mention that total number of plots comes to 28,000.

While talking to media representatives, the minister said that Sindh Board of revenue would be approached for more land so that further low-cost housing schemes should be established for the low-income people especially employees of local governments in Sindh.

Replying to a question, the minister said that the local bodies would complete their tenure on Dec 31. The caretakers would replace these for 90 days onward to tenure deadline with announcement for general elections for the local in the province.

The minister said that three provinces have already prepared plan for future LG system except Sindh. The Sindh government would also follow the same shortly with the consensus of other parties in alliance manifest confidence.

MDA Land management Director Junaid Masood Rasheedi said that the current balloting was for 2,400 plots of assorted measurement including 100, 200 and 400 square yards.

The CDGK employees had initially paid certain amount in terms of bank draft in early 2008. CDGK employees had paid fee for plots according to cadre and plot measurement. However, the details of the balloting of plots would take a few days to become public. The successful candidates would pay the cost of plots according to measurement.

However, it was yet not clear whether plot prices would be revised according to recent value of land or employees would be allotted plots as per rates at the time of booking plots in 2008. The previous rates of different size of plots had ranged from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000.

More than 20,000 CDGK employees and officers from grade-1 to grade-18 had suffered from the delay in balloting while they had paid in advance. The MDA had collected amounts from these employees that ranged from Rs 4,500 to Rs 60,000 for different categories of.

Some CDGK employees said that all CDGK employees that had paid fee in 2008 should be allotted plot with previous rates because the MDA had already earned sufficient interest on money thus was deposited.