Notices served on New Balakot City residents

MANSEHRA: The Provincial Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (PERRA) have served notices on the occupants of New Balakot City, directing them to vacate the land purchased for the project.

Programme manager of the District Reconstruction Unit (DRU), a constituted body of the PERRA, Mohammad Jaffar, through the notice directed the illegal occupants to vacate the land before February 28.

The notice warned that law-enforcement agency would take possession of the land through force if the residents did not comply with the order. The development came after the provincial assembly’s Standing Committee on Rehabilitation and Settlement took notice of the delay in completion of the New Balakot City Housing Project.

The project was initiated for settlement of survivors of red zone. The notice, a copy of which is obtained by this correspondent, has been served to almost 300 occupants, who despite receiving prices for their respective piece of land in 2007 didn’t vacate the properties.

Former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf had inaugurated the New Balakot City Housing Project with an initial cost of Rs13 billion in 2007 to settle over 4,000 families of red zone Balakot and Garlat following the devastating earthquake in 2005. The work on New Balakot City Housing Project being developed at Bakrial near Mansehra was suspended in 2010 after the killing of a local.