LAHORE: A spokesman for the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) claims that 92 out of the 100 resident families of Bengali Building, situated near Jain Mandar, have received compensation after this building was acquired for the Orange Line train project.

“A special grant is being provided to each family, irrespective of the number of rooms occupied by it in the building. One or more rooms occupied by a single family were being treated as a single residential unit. Therefore, there was no truth in the stance of certain occupants that they had been promised compensation on a per room basis instead of per family basis,” the spokesman said in a statement on Friday.

He said the building belonged to the Evacuee Trust Property Board and the inhabitants, living there since decades, had to vacate it for underground track of train.

Keeping in view the problems to be faced by the residents after leaving the building, a special grant of Rs1m per family was being disbursed on compassionate grounds on the orders of the chief minister, he claimed, adding so far more than Rs5.5bn had been disbursed to more than 1,500 owners whose properties had been acquired for the project.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2016