Ask authorities to revise encroachment limit or compensate on market rates. PHOTO: ONLINE
MANSEHRA: Traders on Monday threatened to protest and torch the government’s equipment and machines if the district administration and National Highway Authority (NHA) do not revise the encroachment limit on the Karakoram Highway.
A group of traders led by former provincial minister Tariq Khan Swati met District Commissioner (DC) Syed Zulfiqar Shah and apprised him of their concerns. The DC assured traders that their property loss during the upcoming anti-encroachment drive would be minimal and asked them to voluntarily take down the structures on encroached land.
The NHA and district administration recently served notices to over 400 owners of shops, plazas and other businesses on both sides of the highway from Datta barrier to Gandiyan, asking them to clear illegally occupied land within seven days or be forcibly removed.
According to District Officer (Revenue) Ziauddin Khan, authorities would clear all structures falling within 70 feet of the Karakoram Highway. He added over 1,000 plazas, filling stations, private clinics and shops were demarcated as encroached areas.
As the administration is expected to start its anti-encroachment drive in the city this week, local traders held a grand jirga with Swati and an influential landowner of the area. Traders expressed their concern over the operation, saying property owners had constructed their shops and other structures after due approval from the municipal committee and after paying map fees. They stressed not a single person had violated the limits approved by the committee or those by the Tehsil Municipal Authority.
The jirga’s participants said they had invested millions of rupees on establishing their properties and if any anti-encroachment operation takes place beyond 44 feet from the centre of the road they would suffer huge losses.
They said NHA and the district administration should compensate them on the market rate for the land that will be reclaimed, and if that is not possible, then to restrict the operation to 44 feet. They also warned they would put up stiff resistance and set ablaze government owned machines to prevent officials from demolishing their shops.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 18th, 2014.
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Plz dont get discourage by this encroached mafia , Plz keep up all the people r with u , y at first place they build shops illegally , dont fall under there pressure , we need fair dealing for every one. No extra consastion for traders to build unlawfull shops