LAHORE - The district administration has paid Rs1 million to each family residing near Jain Mandir and affected by Orange Line Metro Project, Lahore Development Authority spokesman said yesterday.
Initially over a hundred residents, who had been living in the area after partition of subcontinent without ownership rights, were not even expecting a single penny in compensation and were demanding the government in their protests for some relief, according to the spokesperson.
The Punjab government, however, assured them that all the affected people would be given sufficient amount as compensation.
“Majority of the families were living even in single rooms of such old buildings which already have been declared dilapidated and dangerous for residence purpose. They were very happy when the government announced handsome amount as compensation and they vacated their residences voluntarily. Government did not vacate ant building forcibly”, the spokesman said.
Giving further details, the spokesman said that government has so far paid more than Rs5.50 billion to over 900 people affected by Orange Line.
“The government had allocated Rs20b as compensation for the total 2400 people affected by the project,” he added.
Government sources told The Nation that among the remaining 1500 affected people mostly belonged to Kotli and they are still creating hurdle in land acquisition process. They are demanding the price of their land as per the market rate marking such land as commercial whereas government was paying them as per the price of agriculture land.
Negotiations between government and land owners are underway and the issue is likely to be resolved within a couple of days, sources added.