More than Rs130 billion has been made in property deals as part of the Rawalpindi Ring Road project since its conception in 2017, an initial inquiry into the scam found.
According to the new official findings, 18 politically-connected individuals and 34 influential builders and property tycoons have acquired around 64,000 kanals of land in different deals within the limits of the Rawalpindi/Attock loop, Paswal Zigzag, GT Road and Islamabad Margalla Avenue.
The value of this land was expected to multiply once work on the Rawalpindi Ring Road project started.
An examination of official records, files and initial findings of investigators linked with the project found that these 52 individuals, either directly or through frontmen, collectively acquired over 63,828 kanals of land by paying an estimated Rs31 billion to the real owners. Some portions of the lands were allegedly grabbed in the last four years.
Societies and property tycoons sold around 0.32 million files/pledges of plots by generating an estimated Rs131 billion from clients, officials revealed.
According to the publication’s news report, dealers have also yet to pay tax against 67% of the land deals, which remains at Rs1.7 billion. Around 60% of societies and builders did not meet the basic registration criteria.
Hundreds of thousands of land registrations, however, were being sold to bulk purchasing investors and potential buyers on 10% to 30% down payments in the market, revealed off-the-record discussion/interviews with around a dozen senior officials of the RDA, CDA and Attock/Rawalpindi/ICT administration.
Were government officials involved in the Rawalpindi Ring Road property deals?
The possible involvement of more than a dozen government officials, including ministers, special assistants to the prime minister, MNAs, senators and MPAs, with these property deals was reviewed by the investigators too.
They could have been either direct or indirect beneficiaries of the newly-planned route had the project been executed.
“Some of them either collectively inherited over 17,110 kanals of land or recently purchased a major chunk of land, which apparently in one way or the other was close to the jurisdictions of the Rawalpindi Ring Road. Some of them had already ancestral lands in the concerned area while others appeared on the scene after the announcement of the Rawalpindi Ring Road project,” the publication reported.
As many as 18 housing societies and builders purchased over 11,300 kanals land in nine mauzas, the investigation found. These were in Moorat, Jungle, Raman, Ganda, Daulat Pur, Mehlu, Bango, Kanial and Qutbal and directly or indirectly connected to the Attock Loop, according to the investigation.
These builders and property tycoons paid around Rs1 billion to the original owners of the land but they themselves generated over Rs11 billion from clients by hiking the land price in the last two years.
