LAHORE: The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has decided to include all exemption letters (allotment of developed plots to the landowners/allottees in return of the total raw/undeveloped land), issued till Nov 26, in the balloting scheduled for Nov 30 of its mega housing project — LDA City (Phase-I).

The letters issued after Nov 26 will not be included in the balloting, according to officials.

“All is set to balloting on Nov 30 for allotment of plots in LDA City’s phase-I,” LDA Additional Director General (Urban Planning) Rana Tikka Khan said while presiding over a meeting of the project’s development partners here on Tuesday.

Under the plan, the landowners whose land has been acquired so far by the LDA through its development partners for the project have been given 31pc of the total plots against the entire land. For this, they have been issued exemption letters that can be sold to the general public/buyers in the form of plot files of five marla to two kanals.

The development work in the scheme has already been started by the LDA’s Urban Development Wing, the development charges on all plots would be charged from the file holders at a later stage.

“Most of the land has been acquired by the LDA and those pieces of land that are yet to be transferred in the name of authority must be mutated within a short span of time. The Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act has also been imposed to acquire the remaining 1,500 kanals for the project. The landowners can also offer surrendering of their land directly to LDA,” Mr Tikka Khan explained.

He said the landowners of 1,500 Kanals, who want cost of their land instead of the developed plots, would be given compensation after imposition of Section 5 of the Act.

Meanwhile, an LDA team on Tuesday dismantled infrastructure (boundary walls, offices, gates, roads etc) of four unlawfully developed housing schemes. The schemes, where operation was carried out, included Tariq Garden, Lahore Garden, Heer Garden and Siddique Garden. Another team demolished structure of a marble shop in Johar town.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2019