Imran forgets Sharifs’ vital help in two projects

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan is one of a kind in the political arena, who got massive favours amounting to billions of rupees from the Sharif brothers for his flagship projects of a cancer hospital and a university and at the same time reserves most venomous attack for the duo.
The Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH) Lahore and Namal University Mianwali are the two ventures that Imran Khan quotes from time to time as his major achievements although they were built with private donations and are being run on such funds.
While dubbing day in and day out the Sharif brothers as the worst looters and plunders this part of the world has produced from atop his container for the past 38 days, the PTI chief has not mentioned even once that both of his projects he frequently prides himself on them were the greatest beneficiaries of the pair. No top politician has been lucky enough like Imran Khan to receive this kind of largesse from the Sharif brothers.
Even when some six months back Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the PTI chief’s Banigala farmhouse, Imran Khan had, among other things, talked about his personal problem — building of the approach road to his residence. After that, some senior officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) had sprung into action to satisfy him on the premier’s orders and visited the area.
Irrefutable record shows that as chief minister of Punjab, Nawaz Sharif had provided free of cost land for the SKMCH, and the government of his brother Shahbaz Sharif later built a road for the medical facility. Nawaz Sharif had laid the foundation stone of the hospital. Had this prime land been purchased at the market rates, it would have cost billions of rupees. This would have certainly created problems for the establishment of the medical facility at an early date because much more charity money would have been required for this piece.
Even amid deafening political rancour last

year, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif approved compulsory acquisition of a huge piece of land, 1,000 acres or 8,000 kanals, at a throwaway price for Imran Khan’s Namal College Mianwali with several key PML-N figures have loudly protested the decision.
Top officials of the Punjab government and Namal Education Foundation (NEF), which runs the facility, confirmed that the chief minister sanctioned acquisition of 1,000 acres of land from local landowners under the 1894 Act, which provides for enforced procurement by the government.
The NEF paid an astonishingly low price of Rs1,500 per kanal, meaning a total of 15 million including the essential acquisition charges for the entire piece of 1,000 acres.Way back in 2009, the Shahbaz-government had imposed a complete ban on compulsory land acquisition for societies, trusts, private companies etc., on the ground that some land grabbers were exploiting this facility.
But as a special dispensation for the Namal College the ban was relaxed by the chief minister after Imran Khan had, at least twice, requested his personal intervention in the matter. Thus, Shahbaz Sharif and Imran Khan had teamed up for the Namal College.
The Punjab government stated that for the chief minister, furtherance of education was a noble purpose and has to be bipartisan. Development and welfare has to be above politics in the same spirit, it said.
As per his style of governance, Shahbaz Sharif had got the land acquired at a break neck speed within a matter of days and got it transferred in name of Namal College. This was music to Imran Khan’s ears at the time.
However, the downside was that the chief minister had attracted criticism of landowners and PML-N rank and file of Mianwali. They conveyed their reservations to him and dubbed the acquisition for a private proposition as a “land grab”, pointing out that the Atchison College Lahore was spread over 200 acres; Military College Jhelum over 100 acres; Cadet College Hasan Abdal over 120 acres; Sadiq Public School Bahawalpur over 150 acres; and LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) over 170 acres. They questioned the provision of such a large piece of land to the Namal College and said this was the prime land due to its proximity to the scenic Namal Lake on Talagang-Mianwali Road. However, the criticism had not changed the mind of the chief minister.
Besides, the Punjab government had handed over a 16-room hostel, a complete academic bloc, and 12 official residences of a government college to the Namal College, located in Rikhi District Mianwali near Namal Lake.
The NEF had confirmed that the Namal College submitted the request to the Punjab government for land acquisition in 2008, which was pending since then. All the legal formalities were completed and the district price assessment committee Mianwali fixed its cost that the Namal College paid, it stated.