Daily Times

The District Municipal administration (DMA) awarded license to owners of building materials’ stocks on 10 Kanal allotted land for the plantation drive “Clean and green Pakistan” illegally in Country Capital Islamabad, Daily Times learnt.

A source in DMA told that the government land was grabbed by encroachers for building materials’ stock but later the Enforcement Wing of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) retrieved the land and handed over to the Environment wing of CDA for plantation as green area but both CDA and DMA failed to safeguard the land from encroachers despite it being only a half KM away from CDA headquarter Islamabad.

The source added that the plantation drive was held by top bosses on the said land but not only were the trees on the spot removed by the owners of the building material stocks but many stocks on the spot with the permission license of the DMA were established.

When contacted, an official of the enforcement wing of the civic agency told that under a massive drive they retrieved the government land allotted for tree plantation and handed it over to the Environment Directorate but unfortunately, the Environment Directorate didn’t take it seriously and now the land has been illegally allotted by DMA for building materials’ stock. He added that on tree plantation, government resources were wasted without fruitful results as the encroachers destroyed the green belt.

An official of the DMA told Daily Times that allotting government land reserved f0r green belt and plantation drive was illegal. He added that when license awarding was in process, the Environment Directorate and some officials of the DMA rejected a proposal of establishing a park on the specific location under observation and the high ups awarded license for building material stocks instead.

Its pertinent to mention here that under the environmental laws, no other building project can be undertaken on the green belt, but DMA , in highest negligence, awarded license on 10 Kanal land allotted for Green and clean Pakistan project.

Daily Times made various attempts to connect with Director DMA Zaffar Iqbal but he didn’t respond on the issue.

Published in Daily Times, January 30^th 2019.