ISLAMABAD, Sept 14: General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who is retiring in November after completing his six-year tenure as Chief of Army Staff, approved a few months ago a scheme for allotting agriculture land to serving and retired army officers.

After the approval, the Welfare and Rehabilitation (W&R) Directorate of the General Headquarters circulated on July 31 details of the scheme to all the regiments, corps centers, station headquarters, ministry of defence and other relevant quarters.

According to a former officer, retired Colonel Mohammad Sajjad such schemes are announced after certain periods of time and army officers can get farmhouse land at nominal rates. If the market value of a property is Rs10 million, under the scheme one can get it in less than Rs1m.

Such schemes are introduced by the army authorities with the consent of the federal government, he said.

July 15, 2013, was fixed as the date for launching the scheme.

For General Officers “form will be dispatched, handed over to eligible General Officers by Director Work and Rehabilitation (DWR) directly”.

The officers of the level of Brigadiers and below “will apply through respective units / Formation Headquarters. Formation Headquarters will forward these applications to W&R Directorate, GHQ.”

The retired officers and widows of the deceased officers have been asked to “send their application form directly to W&R Directorate through Urgent Mail Service (UMS) or by dropping at the entry gate of the GHQ”.

Under the scheme, the eligible serving officers should have completed minimum 21 years of service in the army.

The officers who have been compulsorily retired on disciplinary grounds or have already obtained an agriculture land, stud farm land, a GHQ plot allotted by the Quarter Master General / Adjutant General, including Capital Development Authority (other than service benefit, less Brigadier), are not entitled to apply.

The officers whose retirement period exceeds 10 years are also not entitled to apply for allotments under this scheme.