RAWALPINDI: After the cancellation of land acquisition for Rawalpindi Ring Road project, the district administration has recovered Rs60 million from landowners and transferred the land back to them.

Land worth Rs380 million had been acquired for the Ring Road project, however, following reports of corruption in the project, land acquisition was cancelled.

A high-level inquiry revealed that changes were made to the actual plan of theRingRoadto create newroad infrastructures which not only increased the project cost by Rs25 billion but also aimed to benefit some private housing societies.

In early August, Commissioner Syed Gulzar Hussain Shah cancelled land acquisition for the project. Under Section 48(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the amount paid to landowners for acquisition of land undertaken along the entire length of the illegally advertised alignment falling in Rawalpindi and Attock districts would be recovered. The district collector determined the amount of compensation to be given to the owners for the damage in consequence of the notice or of any proceeding.

A senior official of the district land revenue department told Dawn that Rs60 million had been recovered in Rawalpindi after land acquisition for the project was cancelled.

Land of those people not returning money to be auctioned, official says

He said people were contacting on a daily basis and an average of Rs5 to 6 million was being returned to the exchequer, adding that the transfers in the name of the state had been cancelled and those to the owners approved.

“The district administration had informed people that land of those landowners who did not return the money will be auctioned,” the official said, adding that the Punjab government has directed that money should be taken back from those who had been paid during the land acquisition process early this year, and to auction land of those who refused to return the amount.

He said after the directive of the Punjab government, the Land Record Centre had cancelled the transfers of Mouza Chak Khas.

“In this Mouza (Village), only one person had collected Rs400,000 and he has returned the money,” the senior official said, adding that land revenue officials (Patwaris) had been given the task to contact people in other areas and inform them to return the money to get back their land.

On the other hand, the provincial government approved the summary of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) to work on a new project to construct the Ring Road measuring 38-kilometre long from Rawat to Thalian on government funding instead of Public-Private Partnership basis.

Earlier, the RDA sent the PC-I of the Ring Road to the Planning and Development Board but it rejected it, asking the civic body to remove the project from the list of public-private partnership mode.

Upon this, the Public Private Partnership Authority led by Chief Minister Usman Buzdar gave approval to change the mode of construction from public-private partnership to government funding and sought a revised PC-I from Rawat to Thalian.

“The RDA is working on the bypass from Grand Trunk Road (Rawat) to Motorway near Thalian and it will be submitted to the Punjab Development Working Party (PDWP) for consideration in the next meeting,” said a senior RDA official while talking to Dawn.

He said the Punjab government released Rs50 million for the feasibility study two weeks ago, adding that now, it would be a bypass instead of Ring Road and the new land acquisition would be made after approval of the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2021