Ministry orders retrieval of encroached land

Circular asks schools to ensure operation through assistant commissioners, local police

RAWALPINDI:

The Ministry of Education has decided to retrieve the valuable land of all government schools in the four districts of Rawalpindi Division, including Rawalpindi, Attock, Jhelum and Chakwal, from the gangs of squatters.

A formal circular has been issued by the Ministry of Education to all the district education officers and heads of schools, in which it has been ordered that all the schools should ensure the operation through the relevant assistant commissioners and the local police to retrieve the encroached government land.

The Ministry of Education has ordered all the schools to submit the ownership documents, the last survey report, the map and the family tree of the land of the educational institutions, which has illegally been occupied by the land mafia, to the Ministry of Education immediately.

These requirements should be fulfilled within a week and schools should appoint an officer of scale 17 or a senior schoolteacher as a regular focal person in this regard.

The circular said the chief executive officers of the district education authority should send the school name, school area, how much land has been occupied, name of the occupier, tehsil and the complete details of the district within a week and all the legal administrative arrangements for land retrieval should also be completed immediately. It added that the deputy commissioner will directly supervise the operation.

Along with these orders, the district education authority has asked the district education officer and the education officers of the seven tehsils for the compilation of the list and data of such schools by Saturday, which will be sent to the education ministry on Monday.

The operation will be launched in all 36 districts in the next week with the help of the police to retrieve the land of the schools from illegal occupants.

According to sources in the education department, the most valuable land of 56 schools in Rawalpindi district, including a large amount of commercial land, is held by influential groups.

These groups occupy a huge amount of land of all the ancient schools in the Rawalpindi district.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2023.