PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa housing department has introduced a number of administrative measures and environmental safeguards as it has expedited work on the province`s biggest housing project, New Peshawar Valley.

New Peshawar Valley, the proposed mega housing scheme, located at the junction of Peshawar and Nowshera districts, covers an area of more than 106,400 kanals.

Housing Secretary Mahmood Aslam told Dawn that his department took over the project from Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) following cabinet`s decision on November 25, 2024. He said that the mega project would help to protect conversion of agricultural land into housing societies by property dealers.

He said that in December last year, chief minister directed deputy commissioners of Peshawar and Nowshera to expedite the verification process and clear all pending files, revision of master plan by increasing `land use area` from 40 per centto55 per cent and setup education and health facilities at suitable places.

Mr Aslam said that following the revision of master plan, residential area was increased from42,000 kanals to more than 49,000 kanals while open space was reduced from more than 17,000 kanals to over 10,000 kanals.

Besides, he said, area for commercial and public buildings was reduced in revision of master plan.

He said that revision of the master plan resulted in increase in the number of three-marla plots from 15,602 to 27,979 while the number of five-marla plots also went up to 35,594 from 16,539. In addition, the number of seven-marla plots increased to 11,414 from 2,977 whereas 10-marla plots went up to 27,712 from 11,286. On the other hand, the number of one-kanal plots reduced to 11,801 from 15,475.

Mr Aslam said since the project was being developed on land sharing model wherein they were giving a kanal of developed plot in exchangeforfourkanals ofland.

He said that people were taking interest in the project but verification of land ownership was taking too much time.

`To address this issue, we have deputed revenue staff at the project office to verify land records on the spot. Following this, the department has received 45,000 kanals of land under land sharing,` he said.

He said that the department also placed containers at the project site to demarcate the land.

Besides, he said, the department also set up `online complaint redressal` to ensure transparency in the project. He said that to make the matters easy for landowners, the department arranged online applications to enable them to give theirlandforthe project.

Mr Aslam said that PC-1 of the 9.5-kilometre expressway connect-ing the proposed housing scheme with GT Road was also submitted to provincial development working party. He said that the entire length of the expressway was demarcated and pillars were fixed along the road.

Regarding the environmental safeguards, he said that 82 brick kilns were operating in the area and after engagement by department, the owners agreed to shift them out of the project site. He said that to ensure climate change resilience and environmental sustainability, over 10,000 kanals of land was allocated for parks and green belts.

He said that around 300 kanals of land was reserved for thick/ dense forestation, whereas massive plantation on centre media of road was incorporated in PC-I of the project.

Mr Aslam said that under the land sharing rules, the project administration and residents would be legally bound to plant and preserve green spaces and plants. He said that owner of threemarla plot would plant two plants, three plants would be planted on five-marla plot, four on sevenmarla, five plants on 10-marla and eight plants would be planted on one-kanal plot.

`Almost three to four million trees will be planted in NPV besides parks and already available plants,` he said. He said that they also tried to minimise the use of agricultural land for the project at 9.5pc, which was even below the 10pc threshold setup by Supreme Court of Pakistan. `Only over 10,000 kanals of project land would be agricultural while 95,909 kanals will be non-agricultural land,` he said.