MULTAN, Feb 20: The Khawaja Farid Foundation has expressed concern over what it called the dilapidated condition of the shrine of the saint and poet in Mithan Kot.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, foundation secretary Mujahid Jatoi held the auqaf department responsible for the sorry state of affairs.

He said the shrine was fast going out of shape while the decorative material on it was fading due to the negligence of the department.

According to an official estimate in 1985, he claimed the annual income of the shrine was calculated to be Rs10 million.

However, he said the estimate of the foundation revealed the shrine income, including the remunerations received from the attached property, to be more than Rs130 million. The auqaf department showed it nominal in papers, he claimed.

According to the department’s notification No L-863, he said nearly 120,828 kanals and nine-marla agricultural tract was taken into possession in 1960 when the shrines in Punjab were handed over to the auqaf department by the government.

He claimed, apart from the agricultural land, the department also took Faridi palace and its adjacent 20-kanal tract and six marlas into possession and leased out it to its favourites against nominal charges.

‘The splendid Faridi palace had been leased out for mere Rs 30 per month,’ he lamented.

The birth place of the saint in Chachran Sharif was also leased out the to the same people against nominal rent, he added.

Mr Jatoi urged the authorities concerned to declare Faridi palace and its adjacent land the part of shrine to expand it, to scrutinize the income of the shrine and attached property from the period the auqaf department had taken over the possession and the income of the shrine spent in the name of improvement, facilities for the visitors and uplift of the area.