PESHAWAR: The government’s failure to develop the Peshawar Model Town on the capital city’s outskirts in the last eight years has disturbed the landholders, who can neither build houses on their around 150,000 acres land in Urmar area nor sell it due to a ban.

The provincial government has imposed Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for the land to be acquired for the housing colony. The project was conceived in 2010 by the Peshawar Development Authority when the ANP ruled the province.

However, the last PTI government tasked the housing department with executing it.

Officials said the department had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Frontier Works Organisation for developing the colony with 80,000 residential plots but the latter had yet to do the job.

Landholders complain they can neither sell nor put up houses on land due to ban

They said the Peshawar Model Town designed to accommodate population equal to Peshawar city’s would have all basic facilities, especially schools, colleges and a university.

The officials said the directorate of housing would soon send a summary to the government with a request for asking the FWO to either pay dues to landowners or cancel the MoU to vacate Section 4.

They said Section 4 could remain in force for six months only and that the Peshawar district administration had been renewing it after every six months.

The landholders complained that Section 4 had stopped them from selling their land and putting up houses on it.

Meharban Khan of the Urmar Mera told Dawn that the landowners hadn’t been paid land price.

“Our area is backward, while residents are very poor. We direly need schools and hospitals but they can’t be constructed in the area due to Section 4,” he said.

The resident said development activities had been suspended in the area for many years though the streets and roads were in bad shape.

“Our MNA and MPA express inability to establish schools and hospitals citing legal hurdles to the proposed mega housing scheme,” he said.

Norooz Afridi of Garhi Faizullah area said his village’s entire land fell in the housing scheme but not a single penny had been paid to the residents during the last eight years.

“Unfortunately, the people of several villages in this area can neither sell own land due to the restriction,” he said.

The landholder said as Urmar didn’t have government schools, the local children went to faraway schools.

He also said many local children were out of school and helped fathers farm.

Local MPA Khushdil Khan resented long delay in the housing scheme’s development and declared it an injustice with the poor residents.

“It’s condemnable that the locals have been deprived of their own agricultural land,” he said. The lawmaker said he would raise the issue in the provincial assembly and would lead a protest of landholders.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2018