Action sought against housing schemes set up on agri lands

MARDAN: Provincial President of Anjuman-e-Haqooq-e-Tahaffuz-e-Kashtkaran Haji Niamat Shah Roghani on Thursday demanded the government officials to take action against illegal townships, which have been established on agricultural lands in violation of high court decisions.

Speaking to journalists, Niamat Shah said that legally, a person cannot build a town on agricultural or fertile land. He added that the owners of such townships, in alleged connivance with the revenue department officials, changed the status of agricultural and fertile land in the revenue records and declared them barren lands.

Niamat Shah demanded strict action against those revenue employees who had shown the agricultural lands as barren.

Niamat Shah argued that the agricultural land and production of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was shrinking, which is why the province depends on Punjab for wheat and other commodities and resources. He argued that if this situation continued, people of KP would have no money to buy food in future.

He demanded the provincial government and Peshawar High Court to take action and save the farmers, people and the economy from destruction.

It may be noted that Mayor Mardan Himayatullah Mayar, on November 3, wrote a letter to the deputy commissioner Mardan, stating that NOCs were issued by a committee, headed by the DC, to the private housing schemes entirely established on agricultural lands.

He said the revenue department had issued fake documents regarding the status of the lands to declare them barren or uncultivated. Secondly, he added, such housing schemes neither fulfilled terms and conditions of the NOCs nor provided civic amenities to the residents.