KASUR, Nov 7: The Rs300 million project of the reconstruction of Hazrat Baba Bulleh Shah’s shrine has been delayed for more than seven years as the government has failed to convince the house and shop owners around the shrine to vacate the area, Dawn has learnt.

About a dozen house and 20 shop owners are not ready to vacate the land because of the compensation issue. House owners say the Auqaf Department offered plots to them on Abdul Qadir Road without any ownership rights. Shopkeepers, however, have been offered no compensation because the department says the shops were built on the encroached land.

Kasur District Coordination Officer Abdul Jabbar Shaheen said that he would get the land vacated.

The project, launched in 2001, included expansion of the shrine’s courtyard from 75 square feet to 500 square feet, construction of a well-equipped conference hall, a guest house and a Bulleh Shah complex.

A centuries-old graveyard adjacent to the shrine is often venue of death wells, circus platforms, swings, dance theatres and other recreational activities on the annual urs of the Sufi poet. The graveyard also hosts Friday Bazaar and Ramazan Sassta Bazaar. At night it becomes a parking lot where transport owners park their vehicles.

One portion of the graveyard has been occupied by furniture makers. In April 2007, hundreds of graves here were demolished overnight to build a recreational park but the work was halted after the public protested the plan.

District Auqaf Manager Muhammad Nishan Khan said he would meet the DCO to discuss the matters creating hurdles in the execution of the project.