BAHAWALPUR: Cholistan Development Authority Managing Director Rana Muhammad Aslam says the Punjab cabinet, in its meeting last month, declared null and void all the 54,115 filed applications, including 15,228 scrutinised ones, of the farmers for allotment of land in the desert areas of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan districts under the Chief Minister’s Cholistan Package.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, he said that in pursuance of the cabinet’s decision, fresh applications would be invited from the Cholistani people in accordance with the schedule that was yet to be announced the Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR).

Mr Aslam said according to the minutes of the cabinet meeting (the copy of which was with Dawn), 27,694 lots of 12.5 acres each had been identified in Cholistan for distribution among the applicants. He added the cabinet had also formed seven committees for scrutiny of applications.

According to him, out of seven committees, four have been constituted for Bahawalpur, two for Rahim Yar Khan and one has been formed for Bahawalnagar. Each committee would be headed by the respective assistant commissioner while it would have one official each of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), forest department, revenue officer and lambardar as members. Under the cabinet’s decision, for the first time, a representative of the irrigation department would also be added to the scrutiny committees.

Mr Aslam said to ensure transparency in the land allotment, balloting would be conducted digitally by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).

It may be mentioned the allotment of land to the natives of Cholistan was undertaken in 2014. Since then, the issue was delayed due to scrutiny of the applications, which remained under process for over three years.

During the process, the general election approached in 2018 and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had stayed the allotment process.

IUB: Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Athar Mehboob of the Islamia University of Bahwalpur (IUB) says the number of university teachers would be increased from 600 to about 1,000.

Talking to the media, the VC said efforts would also be made to increase the number of students from 17,000 to 40,000. He said the evening programmes had also been included in the ongoing admissions while planning had been made to introduce new teaching programmes from the next spring semester which had demand in the market so that the graduates might get jobs at an earliest.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2019