KOHAT: The district administration has been unable to find a suitable place for the media colony here despite announcements in this regard by the successive chief ministers for last seven years.

Chairing a meeting of the members of Kohat Press Club, head of the committee for pleading the case of media colony, Mahmood Ain, recalled that former chief minister Ameer Haidar Hoti had announced a media colony and then information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain promised the local journalists in 2009 that they would get it in a fortnight.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had also made announcement to this effect six months ago while claiming that bureaucratic bottlenecks were responsible for the delay in allotment of plots in the media colony.

Mr Ain said that the matter of media colony was not being taken seriously by the administration, which had offered to establish it in Gandiali, which was 25 kilometers away from the city.

He said that similarly the government had 32,000 acres in Jarma near the Kohat university, but half of it was disputed.

He was giving details of their meetings with the deputy commissioner and the project director of Kohat Development Authority.

“When land is required for a university and other institutions the administration forcibly gets the land vacated, but in case of media colony the administration makes lame excuses,” said Mr Ain.

“We want scandal-free land in KDA. The project director has offered 10-marla plots to journalists in Sector C-4, which is also disputed,” he said.

When contacted, former KDA project director Engineer Khanzad, who was transferred from Kohat two weeks ago, said that people of a nearby village had laid claim to the land of Sector C-4 after nearly 20 years of silence.

He said the sector located in Phase-II was carved out in 1987.

Mr Ain demanded of the government to resolve the housing problems of the local journalists as soon as possible.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2016