LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) senior leader Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi has accused the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of grabbing land worth Rs 28 billion in Lahore Division. Addressing a press conference at his residence here on Friday he said, “A sum of Rs 100 billion has been misappropriated in the development projects in Punjab during the last three years.” He lambasted the Punjab chief minister saying, “Punjab’s debts have soared to Rs 712 billion, which were only Rs 267 billion in our tenure and still the Sharif brothers are terming each other heroes.” Replying to a question he said, “For Shahbaz Sharif, saving is what goes into his pocket.” He said that the last education budget of our government was 11.46 percent of the total budget, while funds allocated for the education sector in the last budget were 50 percent less as compared to funds allocated by the PML-Q government. Moreover, he said payment of Rs 4.88 billion was declared illegal for construction of Daanish schools. Referring to the Lahore Metro Bus Service, he said that there was no record of Rs 1 billion in the project. “The record was burnt to ashes in the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) building inferno.” He said that more than Rs 160 million was misappropriated by procuring escalators for the metro bus from China instead of Europe. He went on to say that illegal excess payments of Rs 320 million were made by quoting higher rates of construction and allied material for the metro bus. He claimed that the metro bus was incurring a loss of Rs 2.5 billion annually. When asked about the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT), Elahi said, “The government says that the OLMT is a Chinese investment project but I have proof which shows that is a loan secured from China. “Only in this project, we have been put under debt of Rs 128 billion.” He said construction of defective pillars for the OLMT had incurred a loss of Rs 6 billion but no action was taken against the contractor. “Likewise in Cholistan, failure of two development projects, including Saaf Pani had incurred a loss of Rs 330 million.” Similarly, he said that a loss of Rs 1.2 billion was incurred by using less than required tar coal in construction of road in the province. “We floated a project, Chirah Dam, to supply 25 billion gallons of drinking water to the people of Rawalpindi and Islamabad with a total outlay of Rs 1 billion but dilly-dallying on this project had escalated the cost to Rs 17 billion,” he added.