CHITRAL, March 14: With initiation of work on the Lowari tunnel, the prices of land have jumped to new heights, said people in the real estate business here on Friday.

They said that only four per cent of the total area of the district was cultivable and there was already acute shortage of land. They said that the price of a ‘chakoram’, a local land measuring unit that is equal to 108 square/feet, has become Rs1.9 million which was previously available at Rs0.5 million only.

Availability of land for sale is limited as landholders are still waiting for further rise in the prices. Abdul Ghafar, a property-dealer, said that socially the local people hesitated to sell their land and only did so when pressed hard for money.

He said individual landholding was very small in the area and no person possessed more than 50 chakoram of land.