The federal government had recruited employees from across the country to settle in the newly established capital city, Islamabad. These employees were allotted official residences and they lived there for 30 to 40 years during their service. When these employees neared retirement, their children — born and raised in the clean and well-organised environment of Islamabad — refused to return to their ancestral and underdeveloped hometowns.
Sensing this situation, the government established an institution modelled after the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), known today as the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA). Its primary purpose was to ensure the timely provision of personal housing to retiring employees.
Unfortunately, this institution soon forgot its objectives and became a hub of incompetent officers, corruption, land mafias and contractors.
The first wrong step it took was to limit its role to allotting plots of land instead of building houses. The second was that senior officers, who are fewer in number, were allotted more plots, while the lower-grade employees, who are far greater in number, were given fewer plots. As a result, the officers received large plots after just a few years of service, while the lower-grade employees, despite depositing their savings, were left waiting helplessly.
In the present situation, the allottees of Green Enclave-I (2009), poor government servants who invested their life savings back then, are now retired, battling illness and poverty, and living in small rented houses. Even after 16 years, they are still waiting to get possession of their plots of land. Many of them have already passed away, and their widows are left to wander from office to office seeking justice.
In this dire situation, the executive committee of FGEHA is still considering imposing additional fines on these poor, retired employees. Where will these pensioners and widows find the money to pay such penalties? Should they sell their 40 years of service for a mere Rs1.5 million through property dealers? Is this justice? Is this how states are supposed to function?
Z.A. ZULFI
ISLAMABAD
