BAHAWALPUR: The Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR) has suspended the allotment process of the land by the Cholistan Development Authority (CDA), Bahawalpur, to thousands of landless Cholistanis under the Punjab Chief Minister’s Cholistan Package.

Dawn learnt the process has been suspended to ensure the irrigation arrangements in the new “Chakbandi” of the desert areas in addition to transparency.

The deserving people who waited for two years for the allotment are dismayed at the suspension of the process.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had visited Cholistan in the wake of drought threat on March 21, 2014, and announced a package of over Rs2.7 billion for the people of Cholistan which included improvement of water resources and allotment of 12.5 acres land per family to the landless people.

After the CM’s approval, the CDA had invited applications from the deserving people for the allotment of land. Fifty thousand applicants had submitted applications and over 13,000 were declared eligible after the scrutiny. The selected families waited for two years to get the land but the BoR stopped the entire process reportedly to ensure supply of water to the land. The board has constituted a three-member committee with Commissioner Saqib Zafar as its chairman and the CDA managing director and chief engineer irrigation, Bahawalpur zone, as its members to complete the process afresh.

Director administration/land of the CDA Imam Bakhsh said the board had constituted the committee to check whether the allotted land would have access to the canal water for cultivation. He said the committee wanted to initiate work with the coordination of the officials of the irrigation department but faced a delay as the Bahawalpur zone was presently without a chief engineer. He said in the absence of the chief engineer, the subordinate officials, including superintending engineer, executive engineers and sub-divisional officers, might undertake a survey of the new “Chakbandi” where the irrigation water might be available for cultivation.

It is learnt the survey by the irrigation officials might cause an inordinate delay in the allotment of land. Besides, there are also reports of a fresh scrutiny of the selected 13,000 applications but the director administration CDA declined to confirm it.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2016