LAHORE: The Lahore Development Authority has ‘locked horns’ with the National Accountability Bureau over investigation into the LDA City Project.

Both NAB and LDA are dismissive of each other’s statements about the alleged irregularities in the project.

NAB Lahore says it has received “multiple complaints” about the project and the LDA has pledged to acquire more land for its project to address the complaints of ‘over-selling’ of plots.

Authority head says bureau didn’t share plaints about overselling of plots

“The LDA has submitted the record of the project and given us a presentation in this regard. It has agreed to look into the issue of reselling (of plots) and pledged to acquire more land and make the process more transparent to address the grievances of the complainants,” a NAB Lahore spokesman told Dawn.

Reacting sharply to it, LDA chief Ahad Cheema says: “NAB does not speak the truth. No complaints about the irregularities have been shared with us. In fact, the bureau doesn’t have a single complaint about the project.”

While NAB insists it has received a number of complaints, Mr Cheema smells a rat in the claim saying “someone might have asked NAB to look into the project”.

“I have given a presentation to the NAB about the layout plan of the project, its approval, acquisition process, land contractors and the future plan. The NAB did not tell me about any complaints of over-selling of plots or anything else about the project. I think NAB is acting on rumours,” Mr Cheema said, adding he worked hard on the project and there was no possibility of fraud or any irregularity in it.

“It is a clean and clear project and we have got a lot of appreciation over it. There has not been a single case of litigation. Soon we are going to place the sold plots on our website,” he said.

The LDA chief did not hesitate to further take on the NAB saying the bureau was also not speaking truth about acquiring more land.

“LDA never pledged to acquire more land (to compensate the complainants). We have the land more than the plots sold. So there is absolutely no need to acquire more land,” he said.

When asked from the NAB spokesman about “who is speaking truth in the whole saga -- LDA or NAB?”, he reiterated the bureau’s stance. “We are moving step by step. Now we have summoned contractors/private developers over the matter.”

Primarily, the complainants have accused the LDA and its developers of selling the land (plots) more than they acquired.

The LDA City, said to be the largest housing project in the country comprising more than 60,000 kanals, was announced last year in Lahore on Ferozepur Road.

The Punjab government has already notified seven mauzas — Kahna, Kacha, Thay Panju, Sidhar, Halloki, Rakh Jhedu and Toor Warraich — to be acquired for the project. The land acquisition in the aforementioned villages has been continuing for the last six months or so.

The LDA has reportedly decided not to acquire the land directly from landowners and hired six development firms for the purpose. Under the agreement, the development partners would get one-third of the developed plots of the total land they would surrender or transfer to LDA. The authority would also pay them one per cent of the total cost of the surrendered land as commission.

According to rule-20 (chapter-IV) of the Punjab Private Housing Schemes and land subdivision rules-2010, which the LDA follows too while developing a residential scheme, a developer is not allowed to advertise sale of plots or housing units in print or electronic media without a prior no objection certification form the competent authority. And the competent authority may grant NOC to a developer under sub-rule (1) within 15 days after fulfillment of conditions prescribed for the purpose.

The conditions include mentioning of total area of the scheme with location plan, aggregate of residential and commercial plots, detail of mortgaged plots, period for completion of development works, name of competent authority and sanction number, procedure of allotment of plots through balloting or otherwise and detail of plots to be sold.

But in this case, the LDA apparently ignored mentioning various information on aggregate of residential and commercial plots, period of development work completion and detail of plots to be sold.

And under rule-3, it is necessary for a development authority to scrutinise the ownership documents and settlement of public objections while approving a residential scheme.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2015

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