LAHORE, June 5: The Punjab cabinet on Monday approved in principle to award proprietary rights to occupancy tenants in the province besides ratifying police reforms programme. The cabinet meeting, which was presided over by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi, discussed in detail the draft of the law regarding awarding of ownership rights to tenants and gave approval in principle for presenting it before the assembly. As a result of this decision, some 82,000 occupancy tenants and Muqarari Dars will get proprietary right free of cost for their land.
Commenting on the decision of the cabinet, the chief minister said the award of free ownership rights to occupancy tenants would benefit thousands of families in the province. He directed the authorities concerned to also expand the scope of the scheme for the provision of 12.5 acres of land to landless farmers and five-marla plots to the shelterless in the rural areas. He directed that more state land should be identified for this purpose and the process be completed on emergency basis.
In the light of the decision taken by the cabinet, a special monthly allowance of Rs2,000 would be given to all constables and head constables in the province under the police reforms programme and an additional Rs1.75 billion would be spent by the government annually on the constabulary of the Punjab police comprising 114,000 personnel for this purpose.
The cabinet appreciated the new system for the posting of SHOs in the police stations under the police reforms programme and expressed the hope that the measures taken by the government would result in improvement in the efficiency of police force and reduction in public complaints against the department.
Mr Elahi directed that no official should be posted as SHO in any police station in the province who did not fulfill five basic requirements, including academic qualifications, training courses, seniority, good reputation and superior performance and impeccable service record.
He directed the administrative authorities to evolve a foolproof monitoring system to evaluate efficiency of SHOs and take strict disciplinary action against those who show poor performance.
He said such SHOs be blacklisted for posting in such capacity throughout their remaining career.
The chief minister said the officials who furnish wrong statistics about crime had no right to remain in the police force. The government had taken stern action against such officials and would continue to do so irrespective of their rank in future as well. The cabinet also approved various measures for increasing the number of police stations in Punjab, appointment of supervisory officers in big cities, setting up of special centers for FIR registration and improvement of traffic police system.
The provincial cabinet also gave approval of the project for the setting up of a sports city in Lahore on 3,000 acres. Stadiums of international standard for cricket, hockey, tennis, squash and other sports will be set up under this project, costing Rs120 billion. The project will be executed under private-public partnership.