March 27, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 26: After officially acknowledging irregularities in allotment of compensatory plots among claimants to land acquired for D-12 and H-12 sectors, the city managers are now trying to sweep the issue under the carpet.

The land directorate has reportedly awarded over 700 plots worth about Rs1 billion to dubious claimants while settling compensation for the land it acquired in the sectors.

Sources said only 300 of the over 1,000 landholders on the compensation list were “genuine”.

However, Capital Development Authority (CDA) director land Asadullah Faiz told Dawn on Wednesday that they had gone through the whole issue and found nothing wrong in the allotment of plots.

All the claimants have been awarded plots in Sector I-14, which was specially opened to settle displaced people of different sectors whose land was being acquired for developing new sectors. These 1,000 plots have been allotted against 48 kanals acquired in D-12 and 55 kanals in H-11 sector.

The sources said top officials of the CDA had ordered an inquiry into the alleged malpractice in allotment of plots but so far no action had been taken in this regard.

The 48 kanals of land in D-12 has been acquired for the construction of a service road while the rest of the land in the sector was acquired earlier.

The sources said the number of claimants to the 48 kanals in D-12 was initially 50 which soon swelled to 400. “This number is likely to increase further,” the CDA director said.

It may be mentioned that a few days ago the director land had acknowledged that the lists of landholders had fake claimants on it and had expressed his inability to check them due to lack of proper mechanisms.

In his opinion, the CDA staff and the relevant patwari could have colluded with the dubious landholders in staking and approving their claims for compensation. “The lists prepared by them cannot be changed at any level in the CDA,” the official had maintained.

But now the same director has totally changed his stance and is saying that no irregularity was committed in the allotment of plots to the claimants.

Sources in the CDA alleged that the list for award of plots to the affected landholders in Sector D-12 was prepared by a sub-engineer, Tariq, of the land directorate.

Top CDA officials including the director land, tehsildar and patwari had verified and cleared the list without any objection.

Apart from getting alternative residential plots, the claimants will be paid between Rs200,000 and Rs350,000 for what is called their “built-up property” like houses, etc.