LAHORE: The Punjab government has sold its 60 properties for Rs2.7 billion through open auction held recently in various districts.

The properties auctioned were earlier part of the government’s auction plan implemented in the past by the Punjab Privatisation Board which has now been merged into the Board of Revenue’s colonies department.

“There were 310 properties of various nature worth over 11.5 billion. These all were previously being handled by the privatisation board in terms of sale. However, after merger of the board into the colonies department of Board of Revenue (BoR), this chapter is now being handled by us,” a senior BoR official explained while talking to Dawn on Saturday.

According to him, 60 of the total 310 properties were sold through open auction recently and the BoR has also accorded approval in this regard in a meeting held on Friday.

To a question, the officer, who wished not to be quoted, said that most of these properties were fragmented and under illegal occupation of people. However, the BoR got these properties retrieved from the illegal occupants through various operations carried out by the respective districts administration.

He said the 60 properties auctioned are located in districts of Dera Ghazi Khan, Kasur, Muzaffargarh, Gujranwala, Khanewal, and Lodhran.

The auction process was conducted transparently under the supervision of board members, with successful bidders granted allotment upon complete payment, he said.

He said the properties were sold in the light of the price evaluated and finalized by the District Price Assessment and the Provincial Price Assessment Committees.

To another query, all 310 properties are neither part of any regular scheme — such as agri graduate scheme, ghora paal scheme etc — nor beneficial to public purpose.

Meanwhile, the sixth Full Board meeting of the BoR convened the other day under the chairmanship of Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) Nabeel Javed.

The meeting was attended by Abdul Waheed Malik, Member Colonies; Zaman Wattoo, Member Taxes; Rashid Kamalur Rehman, Member Consolidation; Saeed Ramzan, Member Juducial-6; Khalid Saleem, Chief Settlement Commissioner; Hafiz Ahmed Tariq, Secretary Revenue Board and Ikramul Haq, Director General PLRA.

During the meeting, SMBR Nabeel Javed disclosed that the agenda consisted of 15 items. Key decisions included approval of the minutes from the previous full board meeting, sanctioning auctions of state land in various districts, extension of the Agricultural Graduates Scheme, addressing delays in mutations by revenue authorities in restricted areas, and approving mass-level collaboration were taken up on this occasion.

A comprehensive review of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 was also presented.

The SMBR directed that advertisements for state land auctions should be published not only in national newspapers but also displayed on the BoR website and at relevant tehsil offices to ensure transparency.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2024