RAWALPINDI: The district administration on Saturday started the process to fix prices of land to be acquired for the Rawalpindi Ring Road Project from Banth to Thalian.

The price assessment committee is headed by Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Ali and comprises the additional commissioner revenue, assistant commissioners Saddar and Gujar Khan, the district attorney, director land and estate management of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), executive officer building, district accounts officer, deputy director local fund audit, excise and taxation officer, sub-registrar rural, assistant director land record and a representative of the commissioner.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that the committee had decided to visit the site to assess the prevailing prices.

A valuation table has been issued by the district collector according to the prevailing market price of land to be acquired.

Price assessment committee headed by DC to visit project site in coming week, says official

He said to make the process transparent, the administration had also decided to film the meetings.

“In the past, many allegations were made about price assessments for the Rawalpindi Ring Road project and the case is still pending in the Anti-Corruption Establishment.”

He said former commissioner Mohammad Mehmood and RDA land collector Waseem Tabish were in jail in connection with the case.

The official said the Punjab Planning and Development Board had allowed acquisition of land for the Rawalpindi Ring Road and the government allocated Rs6.7 billion for it.

He said the road would be 38.3km long and will start at Banth near Rawat and end at Thalian near the motorway.

“New price assessment will be made after imposing Section 4 in the area to stop people from sale and purchase of land.”

He said as per the plan, there would be no special economic zones along the road. The committee would visit the site in coming week.

He said the process to get back the money paid to people whose land had been acquired for the old alignment of the ring road was pending.

On the other hand, RDA has started work to prepare PC-I for theconstruction of the ring road and would submit it to the Punjab government soon. Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has already announced to launch the project under the annual development programme.

The provincial government has also asked Commissioner Syed Gulzar Hussain Shah to complete the homework within a month so Prime Minister Imran Khan would lay the foundation of the ring road and the Leh Expressway and Flood Channel on December 25, said the official.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2021