- Says govt faced massive resistance in cadastral mapping to digitalise land records
- Sindh Province tops list of state land encroached by mafia groups
ISLAMABAD: After authorities completed the first phase of cadastral mapping of the state land, PM Imran Khan Sunday vowed to take action against land grabbers and their accomplices.
PM Imran Khan said that his government has faced massive resistance when it began cadastral mapping of Pakistan to digitalise land records “like protests over EVMs [electronic voting machines]”.
“Results of Phase 1 survey of state lands show why the resistance: phenomenal state land encroachment including of forest land through land mafia-political elite connivance,” he added.
“The approximately value of encroached forest land is Rs1869 billion. This has aggravated Pakistan’s existing lack of sufficient forest cover,” he added.
The PM shared the documents of the survey on the micro-blogging site, saying the total value of encroached land estimated at about Rs5,595 billion.
With this accurate digital record, the premier said the government will now take action against “these land mafias and their facilitators”.
It is pertinent to note that the PM’s statement comes after Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam earlier in the day shared the digitised cadastral maps of state lands and announced that the premier would share this data with the provinces for strict action against land grabbers encroaching many of these lands.
The SAPM, while addressing the media early Sunday shared the latest cadastral maps prepared by Survey of Pakistan of Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan whereas those of Sindh were underway due to information delay from the authorities.
“These maps precisely indicate every inch of state land and its encroached area along with proper dates,” he stated.
Amin said the cadastral mapping was launched by the prime minister one and a half year back to fulfil his promise with the nation to launch punitive and impartial action against the land encroachers.
Amin underlined that the encroached state land number was highest in Sindh but due to delay in data sharing its cadastre map was in the offing.
The SAPM informed that under the cadastral mapping of some 50,000 square kilometres area was covered being conducted in the four federating units of Punjab, K-P, Balochistan and Sindh.
In Punjab and K-P, he said around 160,000 acres public or state land was encroached that worth Rs500 billion. The forest land mapping of 30,000 square kilometers was also completed under the digitised cadastral mapping out of which 700,000 acres forest land was intruded by the land grabbing mafia, he added.
It is pertinent to note that according to one of the completed digital cadastre map, 71 per cent (10,970 acres) of forest land in District Benazir Abad, Sindh was encroached out of the total 15,450 acres, Takhtpari Forest in Rawalpindi had a total of 2,210 acres area out of which 755 acres almost 34 per cent was encroached.
The Lohi Behr Forest area lying at the border of Rawalpindi and Islamabad had over 57 per cent (629 acres) of its total area of 1,089 acres was encroached by land mafia. Karachi Forest Division which was now called ‘a concrete jungle’ had 2,703 square kilometres forest area originally which was reduced to only 0.4 per cent by the land grabbers.
