Land acquisition: Wattoo slams ‘anti-farmer’ govt

A manifestation of this policy to acquire thousands of acres of farmland to set up coal-based power plants.

LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Punjab chapter president Manzoor Wattoo on Tuesday criticised the Punjab government for what he called its anti-farmer policies. “A manifestation of this policy is the Punjab government’s plan to acquire thousands of acres of farmland to set up coal-based power plants in Muzaffargarh,” the PPP leader said in a statement on Tuesday. He said that the Punjab government wanted to acquire the farmland to set up the power plants which could easily have been set up on barren land. Wattoo urged the Punjab government to take farmers onboard before taking a final decision. He also said the farmers should be compensated well if it was necessary to acquire their land.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2014.