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Private company has set up fishing harbor on 74 acres of prime PTDC property illegally
The cash strapped Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) has lost land worth billions of rupees along Gaddani beach to a private company, which the Balochistan government says was leased out to the company “by mistake”.
According to a report in the local media, land measuring about 74 acres has been occupied by a private company called MK Pakistan and it has set up a fishing harbor there.
Initially the PTDC administration turned a ‘blind eye’ to land grabbing by the firm but some of its officials are now trying to strike an ‘illegal’ deal with the same company for a ‘profit-sharing’ venture.
According to the report, the firm has refused to vacate the land and claimed that it has spent hundreds of millions for establishing a fish harbour and constructing a huge building on it.
“The MK Pakistan has instead offered to set up a joint venture and share with the PTDC profits from the business being run by it,” the report says.
The report said the PTDC could not enter into any such agreement because the company had illegally occupied the land which must be vacated.
“Once the land has been retrieved, the PTDC may enter into a joint venture but before that is done the corporation has to meet all legal formalities and relevant rules, including the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules,” a PTDC official said.
The PTDC bought more than 100 acres of land in Gadani over 40 years ago but the land was not utilized at all.
PTDC Managing Director Chaudhry Kabir confirmed that the corporation’s land had been illegally occupied and that the officers of his organisation had done nothing to stop the ‘land grabbing’.
“I have ordered a departmental enquiry to proceed against the officials responsible for the fiasco,” he said, adding that a three-member committee set up by him had visited Gaddani recently and found that the land been given to MK Pakistan by Balochistan government.
He said that when the matter was taken up with the provincial government it said it had leased out the land to the private company by mistake.
Kabir said the PTDC now had three options — to sell the land, lease it out or go into a profit-sharing venture with the same firm which had occupied it illegally.
He said he would place the three options before the PTDC board for an appropriate decision on the matter.
Kabir said the PTDC would meet all legal formalities by adopting one of the three options. “We will follow the PPRA rules and will give advertisement in national dailies to invite firms interested in the PTDC land,” he remarked.
