KARACHI, Sept 24: Nazimeen and councillors of different union councils of Lines Area, on Tuesday, demanded of city Nazim Naimatullah Khan to revoke the decision of auctioning commercial plots of Lines Area till the restructuring of the executive committee of the Lines Area Re-development Project (LARP).

Voicing concern over the city district government’s decision of auctioning Lines Area’s commercial plots, measuring 58767.81 square yards, a meeting of the Jutland Lines union council asked the government to find some alternative means of generating funds, instead of adopting the conventional method of auctioning plots, because the act of auctioning precious land of Lines Area will amount to depriving the LARP of its assets.

Deploring that the city government has neither restructured the LARP’s executive committee nor had taken the nazimeen of different union councils of Lines Area in to confidence while deciding the fate of Lines Area’s commercial land although it was mandatory upon the government to have the consent of the executive committee and also of the locality’s elected representatives prior to taking such decisions of Lines Area.

Asserting that the chairman of the re-development board and the chief executive of the province had made it mandatory that auction of commercial plots of Lines Area would be exclusively for the purpose of raising funds for the development the Lines Area alone, the meeting claimed that since the LARP had, at present, no plan for Lines Area’s redevelopment, the city government should avoid taking any hasty decision with regard to disposing of valuable land of Lines Area.

“Isn’t it unfair on the part of the city government to auction commercial plots of the locality without taking the elected Nazimeen and councillors of Lines Area into confidence and that too at a time when a number of eligible residents of Lines Area have not yet been rehabilitated, despite a lapse of five decades, since they vacated their Lines Area land”, it was said.

Members of the city council, belonging to Lines Area, who met with the Nazim of Jut Land union council, Mehfoozun Nabi, also demanded of the convener of the city council, Tariq Hassan, to immediately convene the council’s session to discuss the pros and cons of the issue of auctioning commercial plots of Lines Area.

They also urged the city government’s administration to defer its decision to auction the commercial plots of Lines Area until the issue was discussed in detail in the city council’s session.