Islamabad: Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has said that government has completed the cadastral mapping of the state land of which property worth 500 billion rupees is under illegal occupation.

Briefing media in Islamabad on Sunday, Amin Aslam said the government was determined to recover the state land from illegal occupants. He said the total area of forest land in Pakistan is around 30,000 square kilometers. He said around 700,000 acres of forest land is under illegal occupation.

Giving detail of the illegal occupation of forest land in various parts of the country, Malik Amin Aslam said 10,000 acres out of 15,000 forest land in Shaheed Benazirabad has been illegally occupied, which makes 70 percent of the total forest land of the district. He said in Takhtpari area of Rawalpindi, 755 acres out of 2,200 acres forest land have been illegally occupied, which makes 34 percent of the total land. He said Loi Bher forest comprises 1,079 of which 629 are under illegal occupation.

Talking about the situation in Karachi, the SAPM said that forest has been reduced to only point four percent area of 2,700 square kilometers of forest land in the provincial capital of Sindh.

Malik Amin Aslam said the Survey of Pakistan covered every inch of the state land, while compiling the cadastral map of the country. He said detail of this data will be shared with provinces. He said action will be taken against the illegal occupants of the state land. He said forest cover of Pakistan can be enhanced upto five to seven percent if illegally occupied forest land is recovered.