MUZAFFARABAD: A businessman in Bhimber district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has offered a piece of land to the government for a public utility project, according to an official handout.

Khawaja Zaffar Iqbal Butt has handed over the transfer deed of 30 kanals of land — worth at least Rs60 million — to AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, for the establishment of a technical education institute.

AJK’s senior minister Chaudhry Tariq Farooq, who represents Bhimber City in the AJK legislature, Information Minister Mushtaq Minhas, MLA from Barnala retired Col Waqar Noor and government functionaries were present on the occasion.

Bhimber is likely to become home to an industrial zone under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. According to Mr Butt, he wants to see the youth trained enough to meet the human resource requirement for the proposed zone. He said that the chairman of the AJK Technical Education and Vocational Authority (Tevta), Zafar Nabi Butt, who is also from Bhimber, had drawn his attention to the matter.

The prime minister, moved by this generosity, announced that the government would establish a full-fledged college of technology on the property by allocating resources for it in the next fiscal year.

Interestingly, the PWD Rest House, where the ceremony was held, was also built on a piece of land donated by Mr Butt to the AJK government in 2010.

Initially, Mr Butt was asked to spare just two kanals for the rest house but he offered three. By the time the project was completed, it had spread to five kanals.

The businessman has also donated land to the AJK government before — once for a mosque and seminary in a housing scheme raised by him in Bhimber along with two plots for construction of the press club building and Rescue 1122.

In 2013 and 2014, he gave 40 plots of one kanal each to Bhimber-based professionals, such as academics, lawyers, doctors and engineers, and as many plots of seven marla each to homeless people in his housing scheme — without any charges.

Published in Dawn, February 20th , 2017