Sialkot-Lahore Motorway: Blocking the road to progress

Provincial govt decides to return land to original owners.

SIALKOT: The provincial government has shelved a mega project regarding the establishment of a Sialkot-Lahore Motorway due to lack of funds for this project.

Sialkot residents have protested at the decision and said that they had suffered great inconvenience simply because they thought the situation would improve after the motorway was set up. “It has been years since they have blocked and sealed off roads for this project and now they have shelved it without warning,” said Pasrur resident Nadir.

Sialkot officials from the Revenue Department told reporters that the provincial revenue department had recently lifted the ban imposed on the sale and purchase of the land (worth Rs5 billion) acquired several years ago for the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway.

“The land is now open for sale and we apologise for all the inconvenience but there are no longer sufficient funds available for the project,” said Revenue Department official Hakim, adding that the land will be returned to its original owners at cost.

A formal notification has also been issued by the provincial Revenue Department on the directions of the provincial government and the project has been shelved. The Board of Revenue Punjab has withdrawn its notification for acquiring land for this project under Section-IV.

The officials added that the provincial government had also asked

revenue officials in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat and Sheikhupura districts to return the acquired lands to their original owners and also collect the given amount in this regard.

The provincial government had allocated special funds totaling Rs 5billion in the fiscal budget of year 2010-2011 for making the payments to the land owners. However, these funds could not be released for the project and were being used for other projects. The government recently spent a chunk of Rs300 million

for a study on the feasibility of the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway Project. Later, the provincial government also decided to expand the project to

the Kharian-Gujrat district.

Sambrial Punjab Public Accounts Committee former chairman Chaudhry Azeem Noori Ghuman said that this project had been politicised by the Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) government in Punjab.

“The project was initiated for political gain and it has been shelved for the very same reason. This could have been a vital development for the industrial sector and it has amounted to nothing,” he said.

Expressing concern over the abolishment of the project, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam central leader Chaudhary Ameer Hussain, former provincial minister Muhammad Ajmal Cheema and former Sialkot District nazim Muhammad Akmal Cheema have alleged that the PML-N provincial government has shelved the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway project to suit it’s own purposes.

The Rs40 billion mega project of the 100km long motorway had initially been hailed by the Sialkot business community when it was inaugurated by president Pervaiz Musharraf on April 11, 2007. According to the official sources, the inordinate delays in this regard raised the cost of the project from Rs23 billion to Rs40 billion and the provincial government now lacks the required funds.

Four years have passed and hundreds of the land owners and villagers of the Sialkot district have been waiting for payment for their agricultural lands which were acquired by the then PML-Q backed provincial government.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st,  2011.