September 20, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1429

MANSEHRA, Sept 19: The talks between a delegation of landowners of Bakrial, the proposed site for the establishment of the New Balakot City, and officials of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) failed in Islamabad on Friday.

“After the failure of the talks, the representative delegation of the residents and landowners walked out of the meeting in protest,” a member of the team told Dawn on telephone.

The residents and landowners threatened to protest before the Parliament House if the

Erra did not accept their demands.

“The government first displaced us and snatched our ancestral land to settle the displaced families of the Balakot, now the Erra authorities want to deprive us from our right of commercial and domestic plots, but we want to make it clear that if the Erra did not accept our right demands, we would launch a protest movement,” said a representative of the landowners.

Talking to this scribe by telephone from Islamabad, the 40-member delegation of the landowners and residents of Bakrial said that the Erra deputy chairman had turned down their demands to give commercial and domestic plots to every married resident in the proposed new city.

They said that the Erra deputy chairman made it clear to them that only those landowners and residents would be given commercial and domestic plots who had their houses. “If three brothers were living in a single house, they would be given a single plot of seven marlas and a commercial plot in the New Balakot City,” they quoted the deputy chairman as saying.

Members of the team said that they made it clear that all married brothers or sons who had been living in a single houses, should be given separate commercial and domestic plots in the new city.

Zahoor Ahmad and Mohammad Aslam, who led the delegation, said that the government committed a big ‘blunder’ when it selected their area for the establishment of the proposed new city to settle the earthquake survivors.

They said that after Eid they would launch their protest movement and stage protest demonstrations.