The army asked for 1 million hectares of state land in Punjab for corporate agriculture

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An undated image of Lahore High Court.  — APP
An undated image of Lahore High Court. — APP

Earlier this year, the Pakistani military requested from the Punjab government one million hectares of state land in the Cholistan area for corporate farming, court documents show.

In an official letter to the Punjab Board of Revenue, on Feb. 8, by the Director General of Strategic Projects of the Pakistan Army, the army is offering to develop “desert arid areas” in Punjab through agri-agriculture.

The army calls high oil and food prices a serious challenge to Pakistan’s economy and agriculture sector, arguing that the army has experience “gained from developing barren, barren lands, which are on military schedule in various parts of the country. placed before the quarters of Shuhada and war-wounded.”

The military provides a timeline for the project in the letter, proposing to release 10,000 to 15,000 acres of irrigated land for a pilot project “immediately,” followed by 100,000 acres of land on March 1.

It then recommends the “identification and lease of one million acres [of state land] in the Cholistan Development Authority’s area of ​​responsibility by April.

The letter was filed on Tuesday by the Advocate General of Punjab in the Lahore High Court (LHC), where Judge Abid Hussain Chattha is hearing a case related to the case.

It is important to mention that after the February letter to the Board of Revenue, a month later, the Punjab government in March signed an agreement with the army to allocate 45,267 acres of state land in Bhakkar, Khushab and Sahiwal districts for business purposes. agricultural farming in long lease for 20 years.

Shortly after the notice was made public on March 17, the lawyers, Fahad Malik and Ahmed Rafay Alam, filed a petition with the Lahore High Court arguing that the grant of land by a transitional government in Punjab was “unconstitutional and unlawful”, as the scope of a caretaker government was limited to carrying out day-to-day functions.

The petition also added that of the more than 45,000 acres of state land being transferred, 23,027 is forest land. Punjab law prohibits the clearing or breaking of land for agriculture, the petition said.

On March 31, after hearing the petition, the Lahore High Court suspended the transfer of the state leased land to the Pakistan Army.

Separately, at a press conference on April 25, Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the director general of the army’s media arm, the Inter-Services Public Relations, was asked about the corporate agriculture project. He replied that food security was a challenge for Pakistan.

“In developing and developed countries, their governments have somehow used the military to improve the agricultural sector,” he said, adding that the role the military can play in making land more arable was ultimately the decision of the provincial and federal government.

In court today

In the Lahore High Court, the Punjab government, through its counsel, submitted the February letter on Tuesday, as well as the minutes of the provincial cabinet meeting held on February 28 last year.

The minutes state that then Prime Minister Usman Buzdar had approved in principle the terms and conditions of corporate agriculture under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

However, the minutes add that the matter should be submitted to the provincial cabinet for consideration, after legal review of the design and conditions by the relevant government departments.

“No such minutes have been submitted [before the LHC] which reflect that the [government departments] actually sat and looked at the terms and conditions,” Fahad told Malik Geo.tvafter the court hearing.

“Secondly, there is nothing that has been submitted that shows the process by which it was decided that the Pakistani military will be the entity to whom this land would be given.”

Malik added that during the proceedings, the judge also raised the question that if there were already specialized government departments, such as the Agriculture Department and the Animal Husbandry Department, then why was it necessary to give the responsibility for collective farming to the military, which has a certain constitutional role.

“The court further asked whether it was within the jurisdiction of the Pakistani military to engage in corporate agriculture,” Malik said.

The case has been postponed to May 23.


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