Punjab urban land systems enhancement project: WB rates implementation as satisfactory

ISLAMABAD: The World Bank has rated the overall implementation progress of the ‘Punjab Urban Land Systems Enhancement Project,’ worth USD150 million, as satisfactory, stating that outcome indicators are on track to meet the end targets.

Official documents revealed that the project was approved in March 2022 with an initial cost of USD150 million, which has since been revised to USD154 million. The Bank has disbursed USD59.74 million so far, while the closing date of the project is the end of June 2027.

The Bank stated that the Project Development Objective (PDO) continues to be relevant and that the government remains committed to achieving it. The project has been successfully implemented in the originally planned 41 districts of Punjab Province.

Disbursements from the credit are proceeding as forecast. Three of the five current PDO outcome indicators are on track to meet their end targets (the increased number of person-based records converted to parcel-based records in the Land Records Management Information System (LRMIS); the area of public lands screened for housing; and the sites of public lands identified for development programs).

Punjab budget: $428.54m foreign-funded uplift projects included

The remaining two indicators have already exceeded their end targets: (land rights registered in and/ or linked with the LRMIS have reached 55.9 million, surpassing the end target of 50.7 million; and the coverage of updated digital cadastral maps has reached 66.1 percent, exceeding the end target of 61.8 percent).

Digitisation of urban land records and maps has been carried out in collaboration with private housing societies and seven external development authorities, including the Cooperative Housing Authority Punjab, PHATA, LDA, FDA, RDA, MDA, and GDA. Due to fewer private housing societies being integrated than originally planned, a significant revision of this indicator’s end target is required, reducing it from 4,374 to 2,187 land records incorporated into the LRMIS. To address this challenge, the project will implement measures to encourage private housing societies and urban residents to register their parcels and will increase investment in awareness and media campaigns.

As many as 10,426,698 land rights have been registered and/ or linked with the LRMIS through Mouza digitisation, record reconstruction, integration of external authorities’ data, and parcel mapping. The MTR achievements have exceeded the 2025 target due to improved efficiency and the faster processing of approximately 5 million new parcel records since the last reported progress in September 2024. An additional 9.3 million records are expected to be processed and integrated into the LRMIS before the project concludes.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025