GUJRAT: The district government has formally announced completion of settlement of the land revenue record of Gujrat district.

The process which was to be completed in 2007 within five years of its initiation in 2002 took at least 12 years to complete.

However, the computerisation of the land record whose deadline is Dec 31 has only been done in the half of the revenue estates of the district as the process still facing delay due to the slow pace of work on the part of the revenue department.

The process, started in 2002, completed with seven-year delay

District Coordination Officer Liaqat Ali Chatha told reporters the settlement of 1,084 revenue estates of the district had been completed but with the lapse of seven years.

He said the process of settlement accelerated in 2009 and the revised deadline of the Punjab government for its completion was Nov 15 and it had been done as the provincial government had posted a separate settlement officer for the project around six months back since earlier he himself was holding the office of settlement officer as well besides that of district collector.

It is pertinent to mention here that the first ever settlement of the land revenue record in Gujrat district was held in 1857 after the area came under the control of the British whereas the second and third settlements were held in 1868 and 1891, respectively, however the last settlement was held in the district between 1911 to 1915, prior to the start of the fresh one in 2002.

The then Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had approved the settlement of the land revenue record in Gujrat and Lahore in 2002 with the posting of additional patwaris and staff besides appointment of a settlement officer at the district level and extra settlement officers in three tehsils of Gujrat.

The DCO said at least 26 revenue estates falling in the urban areas of Gujrat city, Jalalpur Jattan, Lalamusa, Dinga, Kharian and Sara-i-Alamgir had been exempted from the settlement on the orders of the Punjab government since the areas had been congested due to the urbanisation which made it impossible for the staff to do the settlement, however, he said the periodical register of the land record of the 26 revenue estates had been updated after 12 years since it could not be maintained every four years which was a legal formality.

The revenue record of 540 villages of Gujrat tehsil, 433 of Kharian and 111 of Sara-i-Alamgir tehsil had been settled whereas the Patwar circles of these tehsils have also been increased after the settlement, he said.

Mr Chatha said the computerisation of some 545 out of the total 1,084 villages had so far been completed and now the process of computerisation would be accelerated after the settlement since the scanning of the updated land revenue record was a compulsion as the people from the revenue estates that had already been computerised were being given the computerised Fard (ownership document) besides computerised mutations.

When asked about the fate of the 115 members of the field staff hired on a contract basis for settlement in the district, the DCO said the recommendations to the provincial board of revenue had already been sent by the district government to regularise the patwaris and other field and clerical staff of the settlement whereas the settlement officer and extra settlement officers would be assigned the other duties by the provincial government.

The DCO was flanked by Special Assistant to Chief Minister Manshullah Butt, district settlement officer Ilyas Gill, assistant commissioners Shoaib Niswana, Meesam Abbas and others.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2014