Land-grabbing: Exchequer deprived of revenue from 47,000 kanals of Auqaf land

Large swathes of property belonging to the department is illegally occupied across the province.

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government is faced with the difficult task to reclaim thousands of acres of property belonging to the Auqaf department. The land is currently in the clutches of various land-grabbers across the province.

Officials at the Civil Secretariat informed The Express Tribune that the encroached Auqaf property, mostly located in commercial areas across K-P, is costing the provincial purse millions of rupees.

“The provincial exchequer is receiving next to nothing, in terms of revenue generated, from the Auqaf property which houses shops, plazas and markets in commercial areas across the province,” shared an official, requesting anonymity. If and when the land is recovered by the government, the revenue generated from it would be in the millions if not billions, he added.

Playing monopoly

It was learnt that the largest encroachment of Auqaf property is in Mardan where around 40,000 kanals or 5,000 acres is in the hands of land-grabbers. Encroachments in other parts of the province include 879 kanals in Swabi, 1,455 in DI Khan, 383 in Kohat, 303 in Charsadda, 99 in Bannu, 281 in Abbottabad, 347 in Haripur and 186 in Swat. Moreover, around 3,831 kanals belonging to the department has been encroached in Peshawar, Nowshera, Mansehra and Karak districts.



“It is not just private parties; certain government departments also illegally possess Auqaf property.” He added the situation is grave and needs careful handling as it involves reclaiming thousands of acres all over the province.

Officials of the local administration in the respective districts are not extending the required help to Auqaf department officials in reclaiming the land, revealed the official. “If the trend of grabbing Auqaf land continues, pretty soon all property owned by Auqaf will be in the hands of land-grabbers.”

Balance sheets

Even though more than 1,000 shops built on Auqaf land have been leased out to private parties across the province, the revenue earned from them is not nearly adequate.

Officials claimed that shops constructed on the land stand at around 1,000 in various localities of Peshawar, including plazas in Dabgari Gardens, Saddar, Yakatoot and Shaheen Bazaar.



Similarly, there are 104 shops in various localities of Charsadda, 136 in Abbottabad, and more than 200 others in Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi, Bannu, DI Khan, Haripur, Mansehra and Kohat. Despite having more than 1,000 shops on lease, the department only receives around Rs4 million, said one official, peanuts in comparison to what they should be earning against the properties. He alleged several discrepancies and various levels of corruption are at play which is why the head revenue from all the shops is just Rs4 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2014.