KARACHI: Scale and categorisation of immovable property is not uniform across the country, business community said.
Jawed Bilwani Chief Coordinator, Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association on behalf of industrial and commercial community in a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said scale in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur is in square yard, categorised under residential, commercial and industrial plots and further divided into built up and open plots.
In Punjab-Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot scale is in marla and categorised under residential and commercial plots with no industrial category and not on built up area also.
In Balochistan-Quetta scale is in square feet and categorised as commercial and non-commercial with no industrial category and not on built up area also. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Peshawar scale is in marla and categorised as residential and commercial with no industrial category and not on built up area also.
It is pertinent to state here that plot areas are different in the same scale i.e one marla in Sialkot and Faisalabad is equal to 30.25 square yards and one marla in Lahore is equal to 25 square yards.
In Karachi, the industries fall under category-I and category-II but regrettably the rates of industrial built up property per square foot are same for both while rates of industrial open plot per square yard are different which is neither ethical nor justifiable.
Value per square foot of the built up area is only imposed for Sindh province while value per square foot of the built up area is not applicable in any other province of Pakistan which is a clear discrimination.
Everywhere, the average new construction rates for industrial plots are Rs 800 to Rs 1000 per square foot, which bears a load bearing capacity of 200 pound per square feet and this again is not ethical nor justifiable and the industrial sector is surprised that the government has fixed rates for built up (old construction) at Rs 3,000 per square foot (900% higher) which no one calculates more than Rs 300 per square foot and it seems that rates for built up (old construction) have been fixed with the consultation of Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) and real estate agents.
