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ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday vowed to launch an operation to retrieve occupied state land after the first phase of digitalised cadastral mapping of Pakistan detected massive encroachment worth Rs5.5 trillion.
“The total value of all encroached state land and those in the three major cities stood at approximately Rs5.5 trillion, whereas the land encroached in three major cities (Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad) alone was valued at Rs2.63trillion. Similarly, encroached forest land was worth around Rs1.86 trillion,” the prime minister said in a tweet while sharing, what he called, shocking facts.
“This has aggravated Pak’s existing lack of sufficient forest cover,” he tweeted.
PM Khan said just as in the case of electronic voting machines, the government faced “massive resistance” against cadastral mapping of Pakistan for digitalising land records.
“Results of Phase 1 survey of state lands shows why the resistance: phenomenal state land encroachment incl of forest land thru land mafia-pol elite connivance,” he tweeted.
With this accurate digital record, he said the government would now take action against these land mafias and their facilitators.
Earlier, in a press conference, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, around 160,000 acres of state land was encroached.
He said forest land mapping of 30,000 square km was also completed and 700,000 acres was found to have been intruded upon by land mafia.
Takhtpari Forest in Rawalpindi had a total of 2,210 acres area out of which 755 acres were encroached. Similarly, the Lohi Bher Forest had over 57 per cent (629 acres) of its total area encroached by land mafia, the prime minister’s aide said.
At the time of launching of the cadastral mapping for Islamabad in September, PM Khan had said around Rs400 billion worth of land in the capital was either illegally occupied or laid un-utilised, while almost 1,000 acres of forest land was encroached upon.
He had said the cadastral mapping of three cities would be digitised by November this year while the rest of the country would be covered in the six months after it.
Mr Khan had regretted that the country’s system did not have the capacity to retrieve illegally-occupied land from encroachers, stressing the need to establish the rule of law.
“Such a move would help attract investment from abroad,” he had said.
“The total value of all encroached state land and those in the three major cities stood at approximately Rs5.5 trillion, whereas the land encroached in three major cities (Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad) alone was valued at Rs2.63trillion. Similarly, encroached forest land was worth around Rs1.86 trillion,” the prime minister said in a tweet while sharing, what he called, shocking facts.
“This has aggravated Pak’s existing lack of sufficient forest cover,” he tweeted.
PM Khan said just as in the case of electronic voting machines, the government faced “massive resistance” against cadastral mapping of Pakistan for digitalising land records.
“Results of Phase 1 survey of state lands shows why the resistance: phenomenal state land encroachment incl of forest land thru land mafia-pol elite connivance,” he tweeted.
With this accurate digital record, he said the government would now take action against these land mafias and their facilitators.
Earlier, in a press conference, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, around 160,000 acres of state land was encroached.
He said forest land mapping of 30,000 square km was also completed and 700,000 acres was found to have been intruded upon by land mafia.
Takhtpari Forest in Rawalpindi had a total of 2,210 acres area out of which 755 acres were encroached. Similarly, the Lohi Bher Forest had over 57 per cent (629 acres) of its total area encroached by land mafia, the prime minister’s aide said.
At the time of launching of the cadastral mapping for Islamabad in September, PM Khan had said around Rs400 billion worth of land in the capital was either illegally occupied or laid un-utilised, while almost 1,000 acres of forest land was encroached upon.
He had said the cadastral mapping of three cities would be digitised by November this year while the rest of the country would be covered in the six months after it.
Mr Khan had regretted that the country’s system did not have the capacity to retrieve illegally-occupied land from encroachers, stressing the need to establish the rule of law.
“Such a move would help attract investment from abroad,” he had said.
Operation soon to retrieve state land worth Rs5tr: PM Imran
SAPM says forest land mapping of 30,000 square km completed, 700,000 acres found to have been intruded by land mafia.
www.dawn.com
