Powerful land mafia occupies 78pc of Auqaf land in KP

PESHAWAR: Powerful land mafia occupies 78 percent of precious land of the auqaf department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the department is almost bankrupt.

Poor internal audit and irrational structure of the organisation have brought the department to the brink of collapse. Last year, the fiscal deficit for 2019-20 was Rs52.51 million, if the provincial government does not take drastic measures; the department’s deficit is likely to increase further.

KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan told this correspondent that a detailed business plan has been approved to revamp, restructure and enhance the income of the department, unfortunately, previous governments did not pay attention to this issue.

A crackdown has been ordered to relinquish long-standing illegal possessions of auqaf lands and those responsible will be severely punished. “Provincial Assembly has first time approved an amendment in the KP Waqf Properties Ordinance 1979. Local administration will monitor and vacate the Waqf properties with the consent of department.

The land mafia occupiers will be penalised with an imprisonment of one to five years and a fine of up to Rs15 million on any illegal act against the department land,” he added. According to data available with this correspondent, powerful land mafia has illegally occupied almost 50612 kanals precious land of auqaf department across the province out of 65108 kanals. Auqaf department has only 13763 kanals under their possession which is only 21 percent of total land whereas disputes on 734 kanals are pending in different courts.

Interestingly, the police, education and the health departments have also seized 1451 kanals auqaf land in different cities of the province and not paying a single penny to auqaf department.

Sources confirmed that a total of 200 kanals are shown in the revenue record, but unfortunately the auqaf department has no record of its property. According to a report, land mafia has occupied the graveyard land as well as precious land in Charsadda district backed by influential people.

According to the documents, out of 30,000 mosques constructed in the province on auqaf department’s land, only 78 are managed by the department. The revenue of the department was Rs115.9 million in the last financial year 2019-20 while the expenditure was Rs168 million having a deficit of Rs52.51 million.

An official of auqaf department told this scribe that chief minister had approved business plan for the digitisation, GIS mapping and computerisation of organisation. The department will use its commercial land to construct mega plazas to generate extra revenue.

Three commercial buildings will be constructed in Peshawar immediately. He said the provincial government machinery is mobilised to take action against the land mafia. Appropriate action has been initiated to relinquish government land from illegal occupants. Recently, agriculture land at Kalu Khan of Mardan district has been regularised in pursuance of the Supreme Court directives. He claimed that Rs150 million is being earned annually from land controlled by the auqaf department which will increase to Rs750 million after reclaiming the land.