Perhaps for the first time in six years, the revenue department of Rawalpindi has agreed that private housing societies have encroached upon 600 acres of the forest department’s land in Rawalpindi. In a report submitted to the Supreme Court on August 12, the revenue department admitted that 638 acres of the 2,175 acres forest land had been encroached by the housing societies.
Earlier, the revenue department’s district collector, Sajid Zafar Dall, had claimed that the encroachment was limited to 215 acres. However, it is not clear if the longstanding controversy will be over even now. This issue has attracted attention not just because two high-profile housing societies are involved but also because Pakistan’s forest resources are already under threat – forest area covered less than five per cent of the total land area in the country, which is far below the optimal standard of 25 per cent. The encroached-upon land has brand name shops and other commercial establishments catering to elite demand built upon it. The encroachers, the forests department alleges, include DHA and Bahria Town, in addition to a third private housing society. What is also striking in this case is the sheer difficulty state functionaries have had in establishing the facts. The disclosure was made in the context of a suo motu case under way in the Supreme Court since 2009. Two government departments — forest and revenue — took years to arrive at the 600 acre figure, which is still not endorsed by the forest department. An earlier report submitted before the court said the area of the encroached land measures 200 acres, but that figure had to be revised since it was disputed. One would think that measuring the area of a piece of land would be a straightforward task, but the sheer difficulty that the government had in arriving at a figure shows how deep the collusion between property developers and state authorities actually goes, where the former are able to subvert the working of the state with relative ease. The various forest departments of the provincial governments need to be more vigilant over the land whose care they are entrusted with, and move faster to raise the alarm in the event of encroachment. And the provincial governments also need to rise to their obligation to safeguard common lands under their care. Levelling forests to build housing societies for the elites is criminal negligence of government duties.
pk.shafaqna.com
