HE Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment has sought the land acquisition records of several housing schemes launched, managed and maintained by the Lahore Development Authority in order to probe allegations of widespread fraud and corruption during the last five years. The anti-corruption agency wants to look into various aspects of the land business pertaining to these projects from acquisition of land to sale and allotment of developed plots to the plot exchange policy to changes in the original layout of schemes, etc. An internal LDA inquiry has revealed that at least 100 residential plots in Johar Town, one of the largest housing schemes in Punjab`s capital, which are still owned by the authority on paper, have been allotted and sold, probably multiple times, through forged documents and duplicate files. It is suspected that some LDA officials connived with external elements to prepare bogus files for these plots to make a quick buck.

It isn`t for the first time that LDA officials have been suspected of scheming with property mafias to commit fraud through forged documents and facilitate land grabs by powerful persons with significant clout in almost every major political party.

There have been numerous occasions previously, too, when LDA employees and land grabbers illegally sold the same plot to scores of people, leading to long litigations by buyers and the loss of their life savings. That is not all. The `plot exchange policy` is also frequently misused, and the rules of `land use` are often changed to benefit wealthy private developers and realtors and allow them to convert residential plots into commercial ones for their schemes. Under the Buzdar administration in Punjab, LDA by-laws were changed drastically, apparently to help private developers make truckloads of easy money. The anticorruption agency should not limit its probe to just LDA schemes or the authority`s employees; it must also expand its task to investigate how the LDA has benefited private developers to the disadvantage of the common people.