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| India-Pakistan |
| Army requested 1m acres of state land in Punjab for corporate farming |
| 2023-05-10 |
| [GEO.TV] Earlier this year, the Pakistain army requested the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard 2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers 3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... government for one million acres of state land in the Cholistan area for corporate agricultural farming, court documents reveal. In an official letter written to the Punjab Board of Revenue, on February 8, by the Director General Strategic Projects of the Pakistain Army, the military offers to develop "waste barren lands" in Punjab through corporate agro farming. The military cites high oil and food prices as a serious challenge to Pakistain’s economy and its agricultural sector, arguing that the army has experience "gained through development of waste barren lands, placed on military schedule in various parts of the country for the wards of Shuhada and War Wounded Persons." Providing a timeline for the project, the military proposes in the letter the "immediate" release of 10,000 to 15,000 acres of irrigated land for a pilot project, followed by 100,000 acres of land by 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 submitted by Punjab’s advocate general office in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday, where Justice Abid Hussain Chattha is hearing a case related to the matter. It is important to mention that after the letter in February to the Board of Revenue, a month later, in March the Punjab government signed an agreement with the army to allot 45,267 acres of state land in the districts of Bhakkar, Khushab and Sahiwal for corporate agricultural farming on lease for 20 years. Soon after the notification went public on March 17, lawyers, Fahad Malik and Ahmed Rafay Alam, representing the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistain, filed a petition in the Lahore High Court arguing that the grant of land by a caretaker government in Punjab was "unconstitutional and illegal", as the scope of a caretaker government was limited to performing day-to-day functions. The petition also added that out of the over 45,000 acres of state land being transferred, 23,027 is forest land. Punjab’s law prohibits clearing or breaking of the land for agriculture, the petition stated. After hearing the petition, on March 31 the Lahore High Court stayed the transfer of the state land on lease to the Pakistain military. Separately, in a presser held on April 25, Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the director general of the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations, was asked about the corporate farming project. He replied that food security was a challenge for Pakistain. "In developing and developed countries their governments have used the military, in some way or the other, to improve the agriculture sector," he said, adding that what role the military can play in making lands more cultivable, was in the end the decision of the provincial and federal government. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 If Pakistan didn't have serfs the Generals will happily make them. |
| Posted by: magpie 2023-05-10 18:28 |
| #2 Talk to the Chinese in North Dakota. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2023-05-10 12:03 |
| #1 Having problems in Afghanistan, the ISI has decided to sponsor opium poppy production in Pakistan itself. |
| Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2023-05-10 10:06 |