Rejected package: Land owners along CPEC route threaten protest

Want ‘adequate’ compensation, say unused land available along route

ABBOTTABAD/ ISLAMABAD: Land owners whose agriculture land and houses are located along the CPEC route in Abbottabad on Tuesday rejected the proposed compensation package and demanded an upward revision.

Maqsood Ahmed a Briton of Pakistani origin, village councilor Asif Gul, Sardar Abdul Hameed, and Nisar Jadoon explained that hundreds of houses in Banda Sinjlian Village, Salhad I, and Muhallah Abbasi have been demarcated as part of the CPEC route.

Maqsood Ahmed pointed out that the payment being offered to the affected families was at the rate of Rs500 to Rs1,100 per square foot for a residential unit, while owners of agriculture land were being compensated at the rate of Rs400,000 per kanal.

He disclosed that rates offered for a kanal of agriculture land was equal to a marla, and according to a survey conducted in the year 2014/15 the per marla land rate was set at Rs1 million.

Sharing documentary proof of the land’s value, Sardar Aurangzeb, another land owner, said that during the last two months of 2016, the revenue department has collected Rs91,000 as tax per marla during transfers of ownership deeds.

They have demanded that the land owners should be paid at commercial rates as their land was of commercial value, while the owners of housing units should be compensated at the rate of Rs3,000 per square foot with resettlement allowance and no tax deduction.

They threatened to stage a protest outside the Chinese embassy if their demands were not met.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2017.