ormer chief minister and Awami National Party leader Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, opposition parties, lawyers, traders and civil are resisting the provincial government’s plan to sell land acquired for the Abdul Wali Khan Campus, Mardan.

Last month, the KP government decided to sell the land owing to the shortage of funds to meet decretal liabilities. The government’s stance on selling land allotted to an education institution has attracted criticism from many quarters.

The Bacha Khan Greater Education Campus, Mardan, spanning over 5,000 kanals, was a flagship project launched by the ANP in 2009. It was to house 14 educational institutes including the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan; Agriculture University, Amir Muhammad Khan Campus; and Bacha Khan Medical College. The aim of the project was to provide higher education to the local community.

The ANP government completed Phase One of the project. For 11 years, provincial government, led by the PTI, did not disburse funds for the next phase of the project. Currently, there is a deadlock with the provincial government claiming that the ANP-led government failed to pay the owners in full when it was purchasing private land for the campus.

Former chief minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti rebuts these claims, calling those baseless. “When our government decided to acquire private land, it imposed Section 4. The Revenue Department fixed the price and then the government purchased it from the owners. The ANP government released full payments to the owners,” Hoti says.

Meena Khan, the provincial minister of higher education alleges that the ANP government released only a two per cent payment to the landowners. “The government already owned 36,000 kanals of land in Mardan. Instead of utilising that for the campus, it chose to acquire private land and didn’t pay the landowners in full. They’re still due their money,” says Khan.

Hoti disagrees. When asked why the owners were demanding more money if they had been paid already, Hoti explains, “At that time we paid the entire amount to the landowners. Later the owners took the matter to court. The owners appealed to the court to raise the price of the land acquired by the government in 2009.”

Regarding Khan’s claims that a lot of land was acquired for the campus when the government already owned land in Mardan, Hoti says that, in the past, thousands of kanals of land were bought by the government to establish Islamia College Peshawar, the University of Peshawar and Gomal University, one the oldest campuses in the province.

Currently, there is a deadlock with the provincial government claiming that the ANP-led government failed to pay the owners in full when it was purchasing private land for the campus. 

Recently, the issue was presented to the provincial cabinet. It was decided that a committee under the chairmanship of Advisor for Anti-Corruption Musaddiq Abbasi be formed to probe the matter. The committee included the provincial minister for education.

Several meetings of the committee were held. Eventually, it recommended that at least 700 kanals of land owned by Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Bacha Khan Medical Complex Mardan and the Agricultural University Complex Mardan be sold in order to facilitate payments to landowners. “The current market value of this land is Rs 22 billion,” says a party to the dispute.

Meena Khan says that the Mardan campus land issue is linked with the Supreme Court order. “Decretal liabilities of more than 25 billion rupees need to be paid to the landowners. In 2009 the land was purchased at 2,800 rupees per marla. The ANP government paid two per cent to the owners. As per the Higher Education Commission, the land requirement for a university is 100 to 120 kanals. The committee has decided that excess land be sold to compensate the aggrieved landowners,” he says.

“The provincial government is not in a position to pay Rs 25 billion to landowners. We must sell the excess land in order to do that,” he says.

Hoti says the campus land was purchased after a feasibility study, master planning, mapping and consultancy. “Every inch of the land will be utilised accordingly. The incumbent government’s decision to sell the land is wrong,” he says.

Condemning the decision, Hoti says, “…we believe that selling land acquired for an educational institute is akin to playing with the future of our youth. The provincial government must reconsider its decision.”

Earlier, the ANP had called an all-parties conference at Mardan in which the PTI representatives didn’t participate. Other political parties, lawyers and people from civil society participated. It was decided that a Loya Jirga be formed to resolve the issue.

Several sessions of the loya jirga have been held in Mardan but negotiations have failed. “We are also examining the legal options. We will continue our efforts till the government reconsiders its decision,” Hoti says.

The writer is a Islamabad based multimedia journalist