Affectees of LDA road projects await compensation

LAHORE: Affectees of four under construction new Structure Plan Roads (SPR) have not received any kind of information regarding payment for their land, business loss and structure loss.

A number of affectees while talking to The News claimed that they have met with the LDA’s Engineering wing officials, including the Project Director but they didn’t get anything in black and white from the officialsconcerned. The affectees further claimed that the LDA’s Engineering wing has started work on the sites and forced the residents to demolish the fronts of their premises and when those who tried to resist were allegedly threatened with dire consequences.

Khwaja, an affectee of one of the SPR passing through Wafaqi Colony, said first LDA’s Engineering Wing officials asked him to demolish the front of his property by four feet, then they asked for another two feet. He said he has demolished his property as per repeated directions and then he was further asked to remove the debris from his own pocket.

Saleem Khan, another resident of the same site, said he also faced similar situation and spent almost Rs100,000 on demolishing his property and Rs50,000 for removing the debris from the site.

The affectees demanded the Provincial Housing Minister Bilal Yasin, Chairman LDA Mian Marghoob and LDA DGTahir Farooq visit these sites and held meetings with them and clearly tell them under what formula they will get payments for their land, structure and business losses.

Sources in LDA’s Land Acquisition Cell (LAC) informed The News that first the authority decided that the affectees of these projects will not get any payment for land and instead they will be given commercial rights.

They claimed it was still under discussions that under which head LDA will pay the affectees. A senior official of LDA’s Engineering wing told The News that at the time of construction of Pine Avenue, the LDA adopted the formula of giving commercial rights against land acquisition but still many owners didn’t get clearance letters from the LDA regarding commercial rights.

LDA planned to construct these four SPRs to ease traffic burden from several main arteries of the provincial metropolis and an estimated cost of this mega project was around Rs9 billion.

As per project details, four new structure plan roads included Southern Corridor (LDA City to Pine Avenue), Expo Centre to Khayaban Jinnah, Shadiwal Chowk to Ghaffar Chowk and Shoq Chowk toDoctors Hospital. These new roads will ease traffic burden from Nazria Pakistan Road, PECO Road, Canal Road, Ferozpur Road, Abul Hassan Isfahani Road, Jinnah Hospital Road and several roads of Johar Town.

When contacted, LDA DG said that every affectee will be paid as per the policy. He categorically denied LDA was planning to give commercial rights to the affectees in exchange of land. He said LDA has imposed Section 4 and after complete survey the list of affectees with their payments will be prepared.

He said that the new structure plan roads would benefit millions of vehicles daily and problems like traffic jams will be eliminated. He said solar lights will be installed on the roads, walkways will be built and central drains will also be constructed.