ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday vowed to take action against the land mafia and their facilitators with the help of digital record maintained by Cadastral Mapping.
Taking to Twitter, the prime minister shared the “shocking” findings of the digital land survey and said that the total value of all encroached state land and those in the three major cities stood at approximately Rs5.5 trillion, while the value of encroached land in the three major cities stood at Rs2.63tr.
Similarly, the worth of encroached forest land stood at around Rs1.86tr, the premier said, adding that the encroachment on forest land had aggravated Pakistan’s existing lack of sufficient forest cover.
The most shocking facts to come out are: 1. The huge total value of all encroached state & 3 major cities land – approx Rs 5595 bn; 2. The approx value of encroached forest land – Rs 1869 bn. This has aggravated Pak’s existing lack of sufficient forest cover.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 21, 2021
The premier pointed out that his government had faced “massive resistance”, just like in the case of electronic voting machines (EVMs), when it began cadastral mapping of the country to digitise land records.
“Results of Phase 1 survey of state lands show why the resistance: phenomenal state land encroachment including of forest land through land mafia-political elite connivance,” he said, concluding that the government would now take action against these land mafias and their facilitators.
With this accurate digital record we will now take action against these land mafias & their facilitators.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 21, 2021
Earlier in September, PM Imran launched a cadastral map of Islamabad to curb land record tampering, ensure monitoring of construction through imagery and provide information about land ownership.
The Survey of Pakistan was assigned the task of cadastral mapping. In the first phase, digitisation of land revenue records of three major cities — Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad — and state land data of the country had to be done, which has now been completed.
The survey of state land was conducted on the lands of the Forest department, Railways, Civil Aviation Authority, National Highways and Evacuee Trust Property.
‘Rs500b worth state land under illegal occupation’
Earlier in the day, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said that the government completed the cadastral mapping of the state-owned land and Rs500 billion worth of it was found to be under illegal occupation.
Briefing the media in Islamabad, the SAPM said that the government was determined to recover the state land from illegal occupants. He further mentioned that the total area of forest land in Pakistan was around 30,000 square kilometers and 700,000 acres of it was under illegal occupation.
Giving details of the illegal occupation of forest land in various parts of the country, Aslam said 10,000 acres out of 15,000 of the forest land in Shaheed Benazirabad District in Sindh was illegally occupied. This alone was 70 per cent of the total forest land in the district.
As for Karachi, the SAPM said that the forest cover was reduced to only four per cent area of 2,700 square kilometers of the forest land.
