Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project

Mian Mobeen Shaukat, student mechanical engineering, Ghulam Ishaque Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology

Ghazi Home

LAND AQUISTION

This project consists of three parts namely :

• The barrage ,

• The power channel,

• The power complex.

All three components require a lot of land for construction, so this section will explain the procedure and the process involoved in acquiring the land for the three. Out of the three, much land is required for the power channel as it is 52km long. Also, apart from the actual project the land is required for secondary purposes such as residential colonies, safety compounds, offices etc. Initial estimates have revealed that round about 5000 hectares of the land is required for the project.

The detailed account of the land required is presented in the table. We see that the land proposed for the barrage is about 1200 hectares of the state owned land. The power channel, which requires more than 2600 hectares of the land , is the lions share of the whole project. Only 133 of 1200 hectares is government owned and the rest is to be bought from the local people. The power complex to be built near BAROTHA requieres a thousand hectares of the land all of which is presently owned by the people.

These 5000 hectares lie in the two provinces NWFP and PUNJAB, most of it being in the NWFP. As far as the state owned land if concerned, we hope that there should be no problem in acquiring that unless some of the highest respected memebers of our society have their personal interests involved in the matter. We hope that by this time it must have been done. On the other hand, the aquisition of the land from rest of the people is really complex, as well as interesting.

When a group of GIK ( Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engg. & Tech. ) students went over to the site they had some really surprising experiences. When they talked to the them they were quite unsatisfied with the procedure adopted in buying the land. The procedure is as follows

• A committee has been set up to evaluate the cost of the land consisting of the following members.

1. A representative from the local AC OFFICE,
2. A member from an NGO,
3. A local influential resident like a news reporter.

This committee decides the category of the land, such as commercial, residential, agricultural or barren etc. and then sets the rates per Kanal. Now these rates are the major problem in the setup. The rates vary from Rs. 1,98,000 to a mere Rs. 10,000 per Kanal. So, this difference has created a complex situation, in which sometimes the Patwari asks for a large bribe to transform your land from a category of lower worth to a higher one.

Although the process of land aquisition is more than 80% complete, but still, there are many complexities involved. Still many cases are in the courts waiting for a decision and long queues of people waiting for there decisions are common outside the AC office. Thus, the major problem is the huge difference in the rates of different categories. If one sees that he can get far more than what he is presently getting from his land then he tries his best to do it by using fair or unfair means. It is hoped that the Government along with the NGO's will try to satisfy people as much as possible, along with acquiring the land completely and as soon as possible.

Khwarzimic Science Society
Centre of Excellence in Solid State Physics
University of Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam Campus
Lahore-54590, Pakistan
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