Rawat economic zone: Villagers decry move, block main highway for hours

Committee formed to sort out compensation issue.

ISLAMABAD:

Traffic on one of the busiest highways of the twin cities came to a halt for over eight hours on Thursday when hundreds of villagers blocked the Islamabad Highway and GT Road against the government’s move to acquire their land below the market price for a proposed economic zone near Rawat and surrounding areas.

The protest brought the movement of traffic to a standstill, causing hardships for pedestrians and motorists, many of whom reeled under the hot sun for several hours.

The establishment of economic and multi-purpose zone is part of a mega Rs1.3 trillion ($12 billion) project that includes establishment of a twin capital across the Margalla Hills, construction of a new airport near Rawat and high-rise buildings on both sides of Islamabad Highway.

The protest was organized by the “Action Committee for Protection of Landowners” having representation from 42 villages that were supposed to be acquired for an economic zone, an idea floated by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government recently. The 42 villages have an estimated population of over two million and cover an area of over 25,000 acres.

A representative of the action committee, Qazi Naveed, who hailed from Morha Phapra, in Rawalpindi told The Express Tribune that the government had announced the project without any rehabilitation plan for the affected residents.

“We will not allow the government to displace poor villagers and take over their land forcibly at a throwaway price,” Naveed said.

In the afternoon, rallies from different villages converged on T-Chowk. The protesters blocked GT Road disrupting traffic entering Rawalpindi and Islamabad for around three hours. Long queues of vehicles were observed from T-Chowk to Mandra, Soan Camp and Koral Chowk.

The mass gathering stretched over two kilometres on the Islamabad Highway from the Rawat toll plaza to the gate of the DHA-II.

Representatives of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration and a magistrate went to negotiate with the protesters, but the leaders of the villagers demanded that they would only talk with the CDA Chairman Nadeem Hassan Asif.

The officials then invited the leaders to negotiate with the chairman CDA, which resulted in the formation of a three-member committee comprising Deputy Commissioner, Islamabad, District Collector Rawalpindi, District Coordination Officer Rawalpindi, with a task to listen to grievances of the villagers.

Asif assured the protesters that the land owners would be compensated against the acquired land as per the market rate. He assured them that the zone would not be developed against the peoples’ wishes.

The CDA chairman said that no work on the proposed zone has been started so far. The protesters dispersed after the negotiations.

When the scheme was announced, several private real estate developers started purchasing land around the areas supposed to be included in the economic zone.

They allegedly told the villagers that the government was planning to include their lands to the zone without compensating them at current market rates, which panicked the villagers.

As per plan, the Pakistan Avenue Development Limited, a subsidiary of the CDA, would purchase the land for Rs22 billion. The Punjab government has already notified the process under the Land Acquisition Act 1894.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2013.