Balakot land curbs hit revenue

Citizens await resumption of e-stamp facility to make sales, inheritance & dowry transfers

BALAKOT:

The ban on land transfers in Balakot has caused losses of billions of rupees in terms of real estate sales and taxes for the past several months.

The government has banned sale, inheritance and gifting of lands during the computerisation of the transfer process. Citizens have been facing difficulties in the registration of transfers due to the unavailability of e-stamp facilities in Balakot during the ban.

The unannounced ban on land transfers in various villages of Balakot and surrounding areas for the past five months has made things unnecessarily complicated for people, while the government exchequer has also lost billions of rupees in terms of taxes.

The extremely slow-paced computerisation process being carried out by the Revenue Department has paralysed the entire system. The chairman of the local village council and member of the Tehsil Council Balakot, Ilyas Khan, said that the ban on transfers has frozen the sizable amount of revenue generated by the government in terms of registry fees and taxes. However, the government remains indifferent as the ban on land transfer process moves well into its fifth month.

If the process of registering and verifying transfers had continued under the old system, the government would have received billions in tax in the five months, while the public would have had been able to make necessary transfers. Commenting on the unavailability of e-stamps in Balakot and the additional burden it has led to, Khan said that there is no alternative e-stamp facility for registrations in Balakat. The villagers have to go from Balakot to Mansehra to buy e-stamp paper, which wastes both their time and money.

"The poor citizens coming from far-flung areas face humiliation and exhaustion as no solution is being devised even as months pass by." Said Khan, demanding that manual transfers be restored until the system is fully computerised. He added that Balakot is a major commercial and tourist centre, and that such administrative obstacles are tantamount to jamming the economic wheel.

Ilyas Khan and other residents of Balakot have urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister and Hazara Commissioner to immediately restart manual transfers, establish an e-stamp paper counter in Balakot and complete the computerisation process on an emergency basis so that the difficulties people are facing can be addressed.