Owners want land price in accordance with market rates

Dasu hydropower project

MANSEHRA: The affectees of the 4,200 megawatt Dasu hydropower project on Monday asked the government to conduct a fresh survey to fix the price of their land in accordance with the market rate.

“Though I am Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), I will stand by the affectees as the federal government is not even listening to their grievances and has started work on the project without giving any payment to the land owners,” Abdul Sattar told a jirga in Barseen area of Kohistan. Later, the affectees staged a sit-in at the site of the dam. They urged the authorities to give them money for their land in accordance with the market rates.

An 80-member committee constituted by the affectees also attended the Jirga. It made it clear that they would not allow any work on the project if their demands were not met by the federal government.

Abdul Sattar said that affectees wanted the government to divide the land into urban and rural categories as was done in the case of Diamer-Bhasha dam. The MPA said that government was acquiring 90,000 kanals of land for Dasu dam and had even started work on the project, but the owners had not been paid money. He said that Kohistan was mountainous district and there was dearth of plain areas and the local people would be deprived of their livelihood if they were not properly compensated.

Abdul Sattar said the affectees would not accept the price for their land set in accordance with the previous survey that was carried out by the Water and Power Development Authority. Ghulam Hussain, Maulana Waliullah Tauheedi and Maulana Attaur Rehman, Raja Mohammad Arif and others also spoke at the jirga.