Property dealers staged another protest outside the Lahore Development Authority’s (LDA) office in Johar Town on Monday over delays in property transactions due to a scrutiny of plot files.
Dozens of members of the Property Dealers Association of Johar Town gathered at their office in Q Block before marching towards the LDA office, where they held a meeting with LDA Additional Director General Muhammad Usman.
The protesters demanded that the LDA either stop the scrutiny process, or at least pledge in writing that this would be the last such scrutiny they conduct of land records in Johar Town. They said that property transactions were being delayed. They alleged that the scrutiny was a tool used to extort bribes from property dealers and their clients.
LDA officials began the scrutiny process last week looking out for so-called ‘double exemption’ plots. When an area comes under the administration of the LDA, it offers compensation to land owners in the form of other land. In Johar Town, for example, owners of 10 kanals were given three kanals. Often, LDA officials fail to record the transfer at the Land Revenue Department, whether because of corruption or inefficiency. The original owner can then get a new registry for the plot from the Revenue Department and then sell the plot to someone else, who can then claim land in compensation from the LDA. This process can be repeated and the government sometimes ends up giving out more land than it acquires. These plots are called double exemption plots.
Johar Town Property Dealers Association spokesman Malik Usman said that the LDA had repeatedly checked the files for double exemption plots in recent years. He said that in an earlier scrutiny process at the LDA Johar Town office, 3,200 plots files had been declared bogus. He said that 2,000 of these plots had been sold with the connivance of LDA officials. He alleged that Revenue Department officials also demanded bribes from property dealers to get paperwork processed.
Additional Director General Usman said that the LDA could not say how long the scrutiny process would take, as it was still sizing up the task, but that it would give the property dealers a timeframe soon.
He said that the LDA was trying to ensure the scrutiny process was transparent so the matter could be resolved once and for all, but he could not guarantee that there would not be another checking of the files in future.
He said that he had told the property dealers at Monday’s meeting that there would be no scrutiny of plots which had houses built on them, which he estimated to be 75 per cent of the plots in Johar Town. There would also be no scrutiny for plots being transferred for the first time, which was around five per cent of plots in Johar Town.
“The problem is with 20 per cent of the plots in Johar Town. Unfortunately, many of these have been granted multiple exemptions. We are confident of addressing the issue,” he said.
Published In The Express Tribune, June 26th, 2012.
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