LAHORE: Land grabbers have occupied numerous residential and commercial plots owned by the Lahore Development Authority in Johar Town allegedly in connivance with the respective LDA officers.

Since the number of the plots worth billions of rupees falling under illegal possession is in thousands, the LDA has so far failed to retrieve all properties from the grabbers, Dawn has learnt.

“It is a matter of grave concern that a huge number of LDA plots have been grabbed by the land mafia. And this is not possible without connivance of the LDA staffers posted in the directorates/sections concerned,” deplores an insider.

“The LDA top management and the Punjab government must take notice of the situation by acting against the officials who either facilitated the land grabbers occupy the plots or failed to retrieve the properties from them,” the official, requesting anonymity, said.

Unauthorised constructions made; shrines, mosques built on some plots

According to a survey report, as many as 3,244 plots have been identified as the LDA property through digitisation/sifting of the plot files record of Johar Town (both phases). The plots measuring 5 to 1 kanal and above have been categorised as green, orange and red. Plots falling in green category mean that the LDA has complete record of such properties. Likewise the plots falling in orange and red categories mean that some documents/reports are missing allegedly on the part of directorates concerned.

The report mentions that as many as 13 plots, except one in Johar Town A block are in possession with illegal construction of structures (houses, boundary walls, commercial buildings etc). A-1 block has eight such plots, followed by A-II and A-III blocks having nine plots under illegal possession. Block B, B1, B-II and B-III have around 96 plots, including some existing in village area, followed by C, C-I and C-II blocks having over 265 plots. As many as 238 plots exist in D, D-I and D-II blocks, followed by E, E-1 and E-II blocks having 141 plots. More or less 106 plots exist in F, F-I and F-II blocks, followed by Finance & Trade Centre (FTC) block that also has some plots under unlawful possession. Various plots in civic centre (Mian Plaza) have also been identified as LDA property.

In G, G-1, G-II, G-III and G-IV blocks, the number of most plots in illegal occupation is around 300. As many as 332 plots exist in H, H-I, H-II and H-III blocks and most of them have been occupied by the land mafia. J, J-I, J-II and J-III blocks have almost 250 plots followed by K block where many of the169 plots are in illegal possession. It may be mentioned that the Johar Town’s G, G-I, G-II, G-III, G-IV, H, H-1, H-II, H-III, J, J-I, J-II and J-III are situated very closed to Lahore Canal and a number of plots in these blocks are situated facing canal road (from Jinnah underpass to Thokar Niaz Beg (Aiwan-i-Quaid-i-Azam).

In L-block, most of 16 LDA-owned plots have been possessed unlawfully with construction of houses/structures. Several plots of the total 210 have either been possessed by the people in M-Block (Samsani village side). Many of the total 152 plots in N-block have also been possessed by the people in Samsani village whereas most of the total 56 plots in P-block have been taken over by the land grabbers by constructing houses, structures etc. Some shrines along with mosques have also been built on some plots there.

The situation in Q-block is not different, as most of the 62 plots have been identified as under illegal possession. Likewise, a majority of nearly 700 plots situated in R, R-I, R-II and R-III blocks have also been identified as being possessed by the land grabbers in the form of allowing nomadic people to place shanties in return of minting money or making constructions.

The official said the LDA teams have taken over possession of some plots in various operations. These included 57, 212, 50, 496, 452, 89, 509-A, 774, 775, 98, 126, 222-A, 286-B, 53-B, 83, 26-A, 97, 34, 15, 38, 42, 106, 164-A, 484, 485, 149, 162, 225, 243, 102, 103, 104, 258, 204, 52, 53, 216,291-B, 144, 197-A, 198-B, 175, 239-A, 239-B, 52 to 56, 252, 340, 510, 611, 110, 718, 261, 262, 377, 919, 638, 21-B, 21-F, 22-A, 207, 495, 56, 362-A, 31, 41, 59, 60 to 63, 110, 277, 10-A, 84, 01, 125, 126, 1141, 1142, 99, 990, 97, 117, 275, 196, 229, 230, 385, 386, 305, 585, 586, 587, 912, 913, 916, 127, 128, 202, 97 and 260 in blocks B2, C, C1, D1, E, F-1, F-2, FTC (Finance & Trade Centre), G, G-3, G-4, H-1, H-2, H-3, J-1, K, H-3, K, Q, R, R-1, R-2, A, D-2, Q, G-1 and R-3.

“Though possession of some plots (nearly 150 or so) has been retrieved, the performance of the LDA’s directorates concerned still seems poor. Therefore, the LDA management should immediately launch a grand operation to retrieve precious properties from the land grabbers besides initiating inquiries and punishing those officers allegedly involved in the scam,” the official said.

The LDA director general and the additional director general (housing) were not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2024