Daily Times

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar said on Thursday that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government will protect each and every penny of the people adding that those, who have illegally benefitted of their influence, will have to pay back every penny of the usurped amount.

Punjab government has set its directions in the first 100 days and targets have been pinpointed. Meanwhile, indiscriminate action has been initiated against the powerful land grabbers during the campaign against encroachments. So far, as much as 759,428 kanal precious state lands have been recovered from various squatters. The total cost of the retrieved land goes to billions and trillions of rupees which is almost equivalent to the development budget of Punjab. In fact, this is not an ordinary achievement as indiscriminate action has been initiated at such a large scale for the first time. The PTI government has shown no leniency to anybody during this operation while no government could dared to take action against the land grabbers in the past. The credit goes to the PTI government that it has initiated vigorous action against the powerful land grabbing mafias soon after coming to power.

He stated this while addressing a press conference at 90-Shahrah-e-Quaid-e-Azam.

Provincial Ministers Raja Basharat, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan and Punjab Government Spokesman Dr Shahbaz Gill were also present.

Giving details of the retrieved state lands across the province, the chief minister elaborated that 56,264 kanal land has been recovered in Lahore. A total of 22,788 kanal state land is recovered in Gujranwala and another 136,000 kanal land is retrieved in Faisalabad. Similarly, 7,350 kanal in Rawalpindi, 405,665 kanal in Dera Ghazi Khan, 14,563 kanal in Bahawalpur, 36,000 kanal in Sahiwal, 56,284 kanal in Sargodha and another 24,000 kanal state land has been recovered in Multan, respectively. All the concerned departments have taken custody of their recovered lands and a data-bank has also been established for its best utilisation. Meanwhile, anti-encroachment committees have also been established at the level of districts and utmost efforts have been made so that hapless segments and people engaged in small-scale businesses may not be disturbed.

The CM said that four different camp offices of CM were set up at Jati Umra, 96-H Model Town, 180-H Model Town and 41-S Defense Housing Authority in the past.

“On the contrary, I do not have any camp office,” he added. During the previous tenure, more than 2,000 security officials were deployed for CM with four camp offices. Now, only 60 officials are performing their security duties. Previously Rs 55 crore was spent from the state resources for the security of Jati Umra and not a single penny has been spent in this regard in our government, he said. PTI government has also made a saving of Rs 3,000,000 in petrol every month in CM Office.

Giving a detail of expenditures of Punjab House Islamabad during the previous tenure, the CM said that as much as Rs 6.37 crore are still pending against political and other persons associated with the previous government.

“We’ve cancelled the booking of illegal occupants of Punjab House and notices have been issued to them,” he said, adding that Rs 6,496,000 are pending against Dr Asif Kirmani, Rs 9,600,000 are pending against Senator Pervaiz Rasheed and Senator Mushahidullah has to pay Rs 2 million. Similarly, Anusha Rahman has to pay Rs 2.3 million and Rs 3,900,000 are also pending against former advocate general Mustafa Ramday. Meanwhile, Zubair Gull has to pay an amount of Rs 2,400,000 while more than Rs 1 crore are officially due to personal friends of former prime minister.

Releasing details of various actions for curbing corruption during the last three months, the CM said that Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) Punjab has made a recovery of Rs 34 billion during this period. Rs 2 billion have been received in fines and Rs 32 billion is gained in shape of retrieved state lands. A state land worth Rs 2.5 billion has been recovered from former federal minister Anwar Aziz Chaudhry in Sillanwali tehsil of Sargodha. The CM said that important disclosures have been surfaced during the actions of ACE. During an inquiry of Ittefaq Foundry, it was learned that Ittefaq Foundry has had illegally occupied around 240 kanal state land in Kot Lakhpat. Out of that, 71 kanal belongs to federal government while rest of the land is owned by the Punjab government. This matter is being further investigated through revenue record and many more disclosures would be brought before the media soon, he assured.

Published in Daily Times, December 14^th 2018.