Kaghan to Babusar Top: Payment of land acquired for road construction directed

A parliamentary panel on Thursday protested over the absence of chairman National Highway Authority (NHA) from its meeting and directed for resolving the issue of payment to the landowners whose land was acquired for construction of road from Kaghan to Babusar Top. The subcommittee of Senate Standing Committee on Communications met here with Bahramand Khan Tangi in the chair to discuss point of public importance regarding payment to the landowners whose land was acquired for construction of road from Kaghan to Babusar Top, raised by Senator Lieutenant General Salahuddin Tirmizi (retd) in the Senate on Dec 18, 2018.
A representative of NHA proposed to resolve the matter through mutual consultations. To which Tirmizi said that the experience of mutual consultations is not very good and if the NHA can make payment to the contractors along with penalty then why not to the landowners.
The landowners complained to the committee of irresponsible attitude of National Highway Authority (NHA).
The committee was informed that the Section 4 has been imposed in the area for the last 18 years but landowners are not being paid compensation.
During the last meeting, the NHA informed the committee that land acquisition collector CPEC (Havelian-Thakot Section) Abbottabad has been assigned additional charge of the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road and the case of the land acquisition is in process, which is likely to be completed shortly.
The project for widening of Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad (MNJ) Road was carried out by the NHA. Initially, land measuring 7978 kanals & 12 mar1as was notified under the Section-4 of Land Acquisition Act (LAA)-1894. However, a corrigendum notification was issued as per actual requirement of land measuring 1,698 kanals.
The then land acquisition collector has already initiated a case for funds to conclude land acquisition proceedings and an amount of Rs 164 million has been transferred to the respective district treasury.
The proceedings got delayed due to posting/ transfer of the LAC.
The committee had constituted a sub-committee and directed to report within one month to resolve the matter, besides directing the NHA chairman to form a fact-finding committee and conduct an inquiry to reach the officials involved in the matter.