Staff Reporter
Punjab Minister for Law and Cooperatives Raja Basharat on Sunday claimed that state land owned by the Cooperatives Department worth billions of rupees has been retrieved from the land grabber.
“The operation is underway, and every inch of the state land will be recovered from the mafia.”
The minister said that the retrieved land is owned by Punjab Cooperatives Liquidation Board, measuring more than 45,000 kanals including commercial, residential and agricultural situated in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Sargodha, Kasur, Attock, Murree and other cities of the province.
Raja Basharat said that the land had been under the illegal occupation of the mafia for years, adding that 764 kanals of land at Thokar Niaz Baig, Jalalpura and other places of Lahore alone has been retrieved during the last six months since he assumed the charge of the ministry.
The provincial minister further said that he had also directed Punjab Cooperatives Bank Limited authorities to take effective steps to get evacuate its land from grabbing mafia as soon as possible.
He said that the Cooperatives department was being made more farmer friendly and was being gradually separated the housing sector.
Raja Basharat said that the election schedule had been issued to revive the long inactive cooperative societies while regular appointment was being made soon to fill the long vacant post of the President Cooperative Bank.
“Furthermore, cooperatives stores and service centres are being rehabilitated and issuance of easy loans to farmers for purchase of agricultural implements through Cooperative Bank will be resumed soon,” he concluded.
