While inaugurating work on the New Balakot city housing project in 2007, the then president, Pervez Musharraf, had proudly claimed the proposed city would be the second most planned and well-equipped in the country after Islamabad, the federal capital.

At the same time, he had told the victims of the 2005 earthquake that he was well aware of their agonies and hardships and stood with them in the critical time.

Mr. Musharraf was not alone in expressing such views.

Former prime ministers Shaukat Aziz and Yousaf Raza Gilani, too, had sympathised with the families, who lost over 25,000 members and whatever goods they had.

The country’s chief executives had also promised the speedy establishment of a new city for them while asking the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority to complete work on the project at the earliest.

However, things on ground are different.

With the dream of moving to own place in New Balakot city unfulfilled since 2009, the earthquake survivors from Balakot red zone continue to be on the streets.

The Musharraf-led federal government had begun the housing project after a team of geologists and seismologists from China, France and other countries recommended the relocation of Balakot warning at least 16 highly dangerous active fault lines pass beneath the city that would cause more devastation than the 2005 earthquake in case another strong tremor hit the city.

The mega housing project, which was scheduled to be executed by 2011, is far from being completed even in 2016. And things in the foreseeable future look no different as landowners in Bakrial, the project site, demanded the district government return their 3,000 kanals of land previously acquired at gunpoint on the payment of Rs1.2 billion.

The provincial government seems inclined towards accepting the demand but emphasises the project shouldn’t be adversely affected.

However, the Erra, which is executing the project, and the earthquake survivors are opposed to the landowners’ demand.

The work on the housing project came to a halt in 2011 following a brawl between Bakrial landowners and police.

Following the intervention of PTI chairman Imran Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, Mansehra deputy commissioner Aamir Khattak sprang into action to settle the issue.

There followed the constitution of a committee consisting of local residents, calamity survivors and lawmakers but the big hurdle to the project’s smooth execution remained the people’s demand for the return of their land.

“We have constituted a committee to determine whether the project will be adversely affected if the agricultural land of around 3,000 kanals is excluded from the project. If the project remains unaffected, then we’ll accept return the land to their owners,” he said.

In the meantime, the chief minister praised the district government for taking ‘serious steps’ to settle the issue and insisted the time was not far when the people could hear good news.

“We have been waiting for the allotment of plots since the start of the project almost nine years ago so that our misery could end but neither the federal government nor the provincial government is serious about completing this project,” said Khursheed Zaman, a local resident of Balakot.

He said over 5,000 families, which survived the earthquake, continued to live a miserable life in small shelters in Balakot and Garlat.

“People have yet to forget the misery caused by the strong earthquake but the government has caused new issues to their unease. We’ve been without plots in New Balakot City even after the passage of eleven years to the calamity,” he said.

Balakot tehsil nazim Rustam Khan said the earthquake survivors were denied plots in the New Balakot City even though billion of rupees had so far been spent on the project.

“The Sector A of the proposed city consists of 3,000 kanals of land, where 4,000 residential plots will be allotted. The exclusion of such a huge area from the project is not acceptable to us at any cost,” he said.

The nazim said all other sectors of the New Balakot City had 1,200 plots and if the Sector A was excluded from the project, where the government would allot plots to over 5,000 survivors.

He said the project was scheduled to be executed by 2011 but that didn’t happen even in 2016 to the misery of the calamity survivors from Balakot red zone, who still live in small shelters.

PML-N Senator Salahudden Tirmazi, who belongs to Kaghan valley, said his party’s government in the centre had made financial resources available for the project but land acquired for the project had yet to be cleared by the PTI-led provincial government.

“The Erra has spent over Rs6 billion on the proposed city but not only landowners are coming up with more and more demands but also the situation has reached a point where the execution of this housing project doesn’t seem possible. If 3,000 kanals of land is excluded, then the project will become only a ‘skeleton’ that is unacceptable to the federal government,” he said.

Director of the NBC housing project Ibrar Ismail feared the exclusion of 3,000 kanals of land could adversely affect the entire project as that land was likely to be used to build schools, health units, grounds and graveyards, which were the main future of that mega housing project.

He said as the local government secretary in a meeting with the representatives of Erra, district government and other stakeholders in Peshawar last month had asked the district government to squeeze the NBC project from the existing almost 15,000 kanals of land to 12,000 kanals of land.

Mr. Ismail said the Erra chairman wrote a letter to the provincial government though the Mansehra deputy commissioner raising questions about the project’s future.

“The Erra chairman asked the government about the legal implications regarding subtraction of 3,000 kanals of land as the provincial government had already received Rs1.5 billion for the land acquisition and paid the same money to landowners, who still occupy it.

“He also asked how the payments made to landowners would be returned to the federal government’s account,” he said.

The project director said another question was about the Rs1.5 billion spent on the infrastructural development of the land to be excluded from the project.

“The Erra’s mandate is to reconstruct and rehabilitate infrastructure destroyed by the 2005 earthquake. Now, as all the powers related to the project lie with the federal government, who will empower the Erra to do so?”

Mr. Ismail said the federal government had paid Rs1.5 billion to the provincial government for the acquisition of land in 2006 but even then, the land had yet to be handed over to the Erra for the project’s execution.

“We have developed the infrastructure of the entire project and developed the E and D sectors by 2009.

“We can complete work on the project within one and a half years if the land and financial resources are given,” he said.

Zahoor Abbasi, a member of the committee of Bakrial landowners, said the government had acquired over 2,700 agricultural land for the project despite their objections.

“If our land, which was acquired at gunpoint, is excluded and given us back, we will cooperate with the government in the development of the New Balakot City and will return the payments made to us,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2016