BAHAWALPUR: The Cholistan Development Authority received 66,000 applications by the closing date of Dec 26 for allotment of free of cost land in Cholistan under the Punjab Chief Minister’s Cholistan Package 2014.

The applications, for which three months were granted by the Punjab government, have been received from six union councils of the desert areas, falling within the jurisdiction of Bahawalpur division. Four of these union councils are from Bahawalpur, two from Rahim Yar Khan and one from the limits of Bahawalnagar.

Cholistan Development Authority Managing Director Rana Muhammad Aslam told Dawn that with the completion of the submission of applications by landless persons, the first phase had been completed. Now, he added, the process of the computerisation of the applications had been started and it was expected this might be completed within the first week of January 2020.

He said the applications would be forwarded for scrutiny to the respective seven scrutiny committees already constituted under the instructions of Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR) by the Punjab government.

Mr Aslam added the scrutiny committees might take months for completion of their scrutiny, which might include holding a public gathering of the applicants of each UC.

He said each of the scrutiny committee would have to declare the eligible applicants for allotment of land if they belonged to Cholistan area having his CNIC and name in the voters’ lists along with the receipt of the payment of Tarini tax (fee paid to forest department for the grazing of their animals in the desert areas) and ownership of less than six acres of land in his possession.

The Cholistan Development Authority MD said that after completion of the scrutiny, followed by the filing of appeals by the affected persons (either against acceptance or rejection of applications), the last phase would be arrangements for holding balloting for the allotment of land.

It may be recalled that the during the last tenure of the PML-N government, the land allotment process of over 15,000 eligible applicants out of total about 50,000 received applications remained incomplete due to the filing of appeals by the affected persons and an inordinate delay in decision on applications by some of the appellate committees. Then general election was held in 2018 and later the PTI government declared the entire process carried out by the PML-N government null and void.

It is expected that even now the entire 2020 might be spent without allotment of land.

It is learnt government might not allot the land on a permanent basis but only grant it on lease with some conditions to cultivate the land for some period.

LOCUST: The anti-locust operation in the desert of Cholistan has been intensified following the fresh invasion of locust swarms of a vast area of the desert.

This was stated by Divisional Commissioner Asif Iqbal Chaudhry in a meeting held to take stock of the situation on Tuesday.

Punjab Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Director General Hamidullah Maik and the officials of the Rangers, Cholistan Development Authority and forest department attended the meeting while the deputy commissioners of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan participated through a video link.

The commissioner said the anti-locust operation had been intensified to eliminate the locusts from division and six control centres at divisional and district headquarters had been established.

These control centres would be functional round the clock. He said that under government instructions, the number of spray vehicles equipped with ample of pesticides had been increased to 600 to carry the spray. He told so far 65,000 hectares in Cholistan and its adjacent areas had so far been sprayed with pesticides.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2020