MUZAFFARGARH, April 4 District revenue authorities will launch an operation against the illegal occupants of state land here.

About 50,000 acres of state land is under illegal occupation only in Muzaffargarh and Kot Addu tehsils for the past 15 years and the grabbers also include politicians, official sources told Dawn.

The operation was ordered by District Coodination Officer Tariq Javed Malik.

When contacted, Executive District Officer (revenue) Ghulam Akbar Kichi admitted 20,000 acres of state land had been occupied by local politicians in Kot Adu tehsil for the last 15 years, and some of them were from Faisalabad, and Gujranawala districts who migrated to Muzaffargarh.

Mr Kichi said the action against land grabbers was being taken on the orders of higher authorities.

He added the revenue officials involved in the operation were being harassed by the land mafia.

He said that recovery of revenue fee and water tax (abiana) would also be streamlined in the district.

Elaborating, he said the total Abiana due in the district was Rs40 million, out of which Rs15 million had been recovered so far, while the total agriculture tax to be collected was Rs50 million but so far only Rs1.65 million had been recovered in a special campaign.

He said tehsildars of Kot Adu and Muzaffargarh had been suspended because of their poor performance in recovering revenue fee, while powers of 23 patwaris were withdrawn in this connection.

The EDO ordered naib tehsildars and patwaris to recover the outstanding agriculture tax and Abiana within a month.

Kotaddu tehsildar Arshad Olakh said the land owners did not cooperate with the department in recovery because they were backed by local politicians.

A revenue official, requesting anonymity, said before the implementation of devolution plan introduced by Gen Musharraf the department had powers to arrest defaulters but now it enjoyed no such authority.

He said in Tounsa barrage area and TDA-536 village politicians including a former minister, MPAs and relatives of MNAs had occupied state land and were not paying agriculture and water taxes.

COMPLAINT CELL A special cell had been set up in the DCO office to register complaints of kiln workers regarding non-payment of their wages.

EDO (Community Development) Ghulam Abbas Somro said this while talking to Dawn.

He said the cell had been set up after the 16-day strike by kiln workers of Kotaddu tehsil.

He said the district government would not allow `fake` unions of kiln workers while cases would be registered against those creating law and order situation by blocking roads.

He said if any kiln owner refused to pay workers wages, a case would be registered against him under labour laws.