70% of Lahore illegally built, says official
PHOTO: FILE
As much as 70% of Lahore is illegally constructed, Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Director General Gohar Nafees revealed on Wednesday.
Addressing a ceremony held to mark International Anti-Corruption Day, he said his department was preparing recommendations on whether to deal legally or administratively with such a huge magnitude of “illegality”.
Every fourth application filed before ACE during the ongoing year was related to the Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR). “The administration of land rules and maintenance of record is a key function of the board," he said.
Nafees shared that the ACE had received over 7,000 complaints related to revenue among the total 28,756 filed throughout the province.
The department facing the second highest number of complaints is the police.
During an informal discussion, a director of of the ACE said that if the district administration and revenue department improved the mechanism of addressing complaints submitted by people, the number of violent crimes would also decrease.
“Land has been the cause of a large number of disputes,” he asserted. Nafees also shared the ACE's annual performance report on the occasion.
He said that out of 28,756 complaints, 28,352 had been resolved during the year. The report showed that 6,929 inquiries were conducted, 1,530 new cases were registered and 1,739 people were arrested by the ACE during the year.
As many 130 of the arrested people were officials of grade 17 and above, he said. He said the ACE had recovered Rs28.77 billion since December last year, including state land worth Rs21.56 billion.
A total of 77,533 kanals and 18 marlas of land was retrieved from land grabbers across Punjab. The ACE recovered Rs17 billion indirectly while Rs910 million in various government dues.
Nafees said the interactive session had been arranged with all officers so that they could know the public perception about their organisation.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2021.