“With skyrocketing poverty and soaring unemployment rates in Punjab today, how can the poor afford to buy a Rs 1.15 million house in the fraudulent Ashiyana scheme? Ashiyana scheme has the makings of a much bigger scandal than the earlier ‘tandoor’ drama.” These views were expressed by Pakistan Muslim League leader and senior federal minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi in a meeting with prominent party leaders on Wednesday at his State Guest House, Lahore office.Elahi remarked that the public funds in crores had been squandered on the publicity of the fraudulent Ashiyana scheme and ever since its launch nothing but huge irregularities were continuously coming to the fore including fake balloting, a petition against which had been filed in the High Court. The minister said that at the outset of the Ashyana scheme, the Punjab government had put the price of a 5-marla house at Rs 900,000 but the price was quietly enhanced to Rs 1.15 m and the house area was reduced to 3 marlas. Later, the proposed construction site in Lahore was also shifted to a place 18 kilometres away from Chungi Amar Saddhu, he remarked.
