But, who is the accomplice, and the culprit?

Isn’t the accomplice, and the culprit the federal government, which gave consent for this scheme? Isn’t it the ruling party, i.e. Pakistan Muslim League (N)? Aren’t they the politicians of Pakistan, who allow such usurpatory schemes?

So, who is the main culprit? The answer is: the politicians of Pakistan.

Farm land allotment scheme for army officers

ISLAMABAD, Sept 14: General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who is retiring in November after completing his six-year tenure as Chief of Army Staff, approved a few months ago a scheme for allotting agriculture land to serving and retired army officers.

After the approval, the Welfare and Rehabilitation (W&R) Directorate of the General Headquarters circulated on July 31 details of the scheme to all the regiments, corps centers, station headquarters, ministry of defence and other relevant quarters.

According to a former officer, retired Colonel Mohammad Sajjad such schemes are announced after certain periods of time and army officers can get farmhouse land at nominal rates. If the market value of a property is Rs10 million, under the scheme one can get it in less than Rs1m.

Such schemes are introduced by the army authorities with the consent of the federal government, he said.

July 15, 2013, was fixed as the date for launching the scheme.

For General Officers “form will be dispatched, handed over to eligible General Officers by Director Work and Rehabilitation (DWR) directly”.

The officers of the level of Brigadiers and below “will apply through respective units / Formation Headquarters. Formation Headquarters will forward these applications to W&R Directorate, GHQ.”

The retired officers and widows of the deceased officers have been asked to “send their application form directly to W&R Directorate through Urgent Mail Service (UMS) or by dropping at the entry gate of the GHQ”.

Under the scheme, the eligible serving officers should have completed minimum 21 years of service in the army.

The officers who have been compulsorily retired on disciplinary grounds or have already obtained an agriculture land, stud farm land, a GHQ plot allotted by the Quarter Master General / Adjutant General, including Capital Development Authority (other than service benefit, less Brigadier), are not entitled to apply.

The officers whose retirement period exceeds 10 years are also not entitled to apply for allotments under this scheme.

Comments (3)

Khan

September 15, 2013 9:29 am

Scripts from Justice Hamood ur Rehman commission report after fall of Dhaka, its self explanatory "The report accused the generals of what it called a premature surrender and said the military's continued involvement in running the government after 1958 was one reason for the corruption and ineffectiveness of senior officers. 'Even responsible service officers,' the report said, 'have asserted before us that because of corruption resulting from such involvement, the lust for wine and women and greed for lands and houses, a large number of senior army officers, particularly those occupying the highest positions, had lost not only their will to fight but also their professional competence."

Ahmer

September 16, 2013 7:13 am

Why is the scheme limited only to officers? Do they sacrifice more that the jawans?

Akram

September 16, 2013 4:30 pm

Khan saab is completely correct, The excessive distribution of wealth in the army ended up attracting the wrong sort of people in the army. People who were paid by the awam to fight and die for defense of the nation were not interested in either fighting or dying when war came. Rather they were interested in amassing wealth and looting. We must learn from the past or we will be doomed to repeat it.

Furthermore do senior officers need more such perks? don't they already have enough relative the awam? If anyone should get this land its the landless and those who have nothing. The average Jawan in the army is probably more deserving.

[Dawn, September 15, 2013]