KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Thursday directed the Board of Revenue to expedite the survey of over 66,000 acres of illegally occupied government land in the city so that action could be initiated to retrieve the land from its occupants.

“I will not allow anybody to illegally occupy even a single inch of the Sindh government [land],” said Mr Shah.

The chief minister issued this directive while presiding over a meeting held at CM House to review the progress made by the BoR in connection with the computerisation of land record as per directive of the Supreme Court.

The meeting was informed that the Karachi division had over 900,212 acres, of which 60,000 acres of government land had been illegally occupied by some provincial and federal organisations and housing authorities while 6,000 acres had been encroached up by private people.

Referring to the directives of the apex court, the chief minister asked the BoR about progress made so far and directed it to carry out instructions of the apex court for the completion of the computerisation of land record at the earliest.

BoR member Zulfikar Shah said the court directed the government that the land record of different dehs, which had been burnt after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, be verified at the taluka level.

“We have started verification of record in three talukas-Jamshoro, Matiari and Tando Allahyar,” he said, claiming that the record of 4,000 dehs out of 6,000 dehs across Sindh had been computerised so far.

“Just after the assassination of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, the record of 870 dehs was burnt. So far, the BoR was able to retrieve and computerise the record of 520 dehs while work on the remaining 350 dehs was in progress,” the BoR member added.

In response to a query by the chief minister, Mr Zulfiqar said that Karachi division had over 900,221 acres of land, of which 681,000 acres was categorised as ‘Na-class’ or un-surveyed land, while 219,221-acre land was surveyed. “Illegal occupation always appear on the un-surveyed lands. This is why 60,000 acres of the Sindh government are under the illegal occupation of different provincial and federal housing and development authorities including the Malir Development Authority, Karachi Port Trust and some housing authorities,” he said.

The BoR member added that 6,000 acres of government land had been illegally occupied by private people.

He said the computerised record had been verified by Tapedar, Mukhtiarkar and then by the assistant commissioner concerned, as this was the most reliable way of verification and computerisation.

Responding to the query about the Supreme Court observations regarding some fictitious entries in the record, Mr Zulfikar said the Khatedars had received over 6,000 certified copies of their record of rights from the 27 service centres of the Board of Revenue. However, no complaint had been received so far about any fictitious record, he said. “We are custodian of the record of rights and are making sincere efforts to make the record genuine and perfect,” he said and assured the chief minister that not a single fictitious entry would be allowed in the record. However, he said, there might be some mistakes and teething problems in the system which could be rectified, if pointed out at any stage.

“We have also computerised thousands of Deh maps which reflect survey numbers along with a detailed map of the land, area and ownership. “We are going to launch them very soon, because this process has taken some time as most of the maps were damaged,” he said

The BoR member also showed different applications of the computerisation system to the chief minister on his laptop. The chief minister located on the digital map Faiz Mahal in Tapa Khairpur, the tomb of Dooleh Darya Khan, a commander of Kalhora rulers in Gajanpur Deh of Larkana and some other places. He expressed his satisfaction over the computerization work done by the BoR.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2016