Daily Times

KARACHI: At least 60,000 acres of the Sindh government’s land is under illegal occupation by various federal, provincial organisations and housing authorities

This was disclosed in a meeting held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah here on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary Alamuddin Bullo and Board of Revenue member Syed Zulfikar Shah.

The chief minister said that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had given some directions for computerisation of land record. “What the Board of Revenue has done so far?” he asked.

Answering the question, Zulfikar Shah said the apex court had directed the land record of different dehs, which were burnt in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s death, to be verified at taluka level. “We have started verification work in three talukas: Jamshoro, Matiari and Tando Allahyar,” he said.

He said out of the 6,000 dehs in Sindh, the Board of Revenue had the computerised record of 4,000. Just after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the record of 870 dehs was burnt and so far the board has retrieved and computerised the record of 720 dehs, he added. The work on remaining 350 dehs was in progress, he said.

Replying to a question of the chief minister, Shah said the Karachi division had over 900,221 acres of land, of which 681,000 acres was un-surveyed and 641,406 acre was surveyed.

“The illegal occupation always appears on the un-surveyed lands. This is why 60,000 acres of Sindh government are under the illegal occupation of different provincial and federal housing and development authorities and agencies.”

Qaim directed the board to expedite the survey work so that illegally occupied government land could be retrieved. “I would not allow anybody to illegally occupy even a single inch of Sindh government,” he said.

Zulkfikar Shah said that the computerised record was verified by the assistant commissioner, adding that this was the safest way of verification and computerisation.

The chief minister said the apex court had given observations that some fictitious entries were made in the record. Shah said that officials had received over 6,000 certified copies of their record of rights from 27 services centres of the board established all over Sindh, but not a single complaint of the factious record had been received so far.

“We are custodian of the record of rights and are making sincere efforts to make record genuine and perfect,” he said and assured the chief minister that not a single fictitious entry would be allowed at any cost. There may be some mistakes in the system that would be rectified, he said.

The board member said he had also computrised thousands of deh maps, which reflected survey numbers along with a detailed map of the land, area and ownership. “We are going to launch them very soon because this process has taken some times as most of the maps were damaged.”

He showed different applications of the computerisation system to the chief minister on his laptop, which contained the maps of Faiz Mahal in tapa Khairpur, the tomb of Dooleh Darya Khan, and some other places.

The chief minister expressed his satisfaction on the computrisation work done by the Board of Revenue. He also directed the board to follow the directions of the Supreme Court in completion of computerisation work.