LDA sets up special cell for new property documents

The LDA has set up a special cell to issue ‘secure paper’ documents concerning land ownership.

LAHORE: The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has set up a special cell to issue ‘secure paper’ documents concerning land ownership.

The documents, such as transfer letters, exemption letters, allotment letters and completion certificates, will contain special security features that LDA officials say cannot be counterfeited.

An LDA official said the cell would institute a “fool proof” documentation system, the first of its kind in the LDA, in order to protect citizens’ properties from land mafias.

An LDA spokesman said the “security featured paper cell” would start functioning at the LDA office in Johar Town from next week.

The cell will be headed by the LDA director for information technology and staffed by a deputy director and two assistant deputy directors of the computer wing.

He said that the Directorate of Estate Management, Directorate of Town Planning and Directorate of Enforcement would in future have to requisition the new cell to get any document.

Another LDA official said that standard operating procedures (SOP) for the cell had been formulated.

The cell will issue documents for plots and houses in LDA schemes in Gulberg I, II and III, Garden Town, Muslim Town, Allama Iqbal Town, Samanabad, Sabzazar, Johar Town, Gujjarpura, Tajpura, Mohlanwal, Gulshan Ravi, Quaid-i-Azam Town and Faisal Town.

The new cell is meant to curb sale of plots on fake transfer letters and resolve claims of ownership by more than one party for the same property.

The security paper contains special features like barcodes, MCS fibre paper, watermark with hologram and 3D images. It has a life of more than 100 years.

This paper is not available in the market and only government printing presses can legally produce such paper in Pakistan, the LDA official said.

In LDA schemes, land owners require as many as 13 different documents to establish their rights.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2010.