{"id":9866,"date":"2025-05-16T12:13:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T12:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hrcp-web.org\/hrcpweb\/?p=9866"},"modified":"2025-05-16T12:13:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T12:13:27","slug":"hrcp-mission-deplores-inequitable-access-to-land-amid-corporate-farming-in-cholistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrcp-web.org\/hrcpweb\/hrcp-mission-deplores-inequitable-access-to-land-amid-corporate-farming-in-cholistan\/","title":{"rendered":"HRCP mission deplores inequitable access to land amid corporate farming in Cholistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press release<\/p>\n

HRCP mission deplores inequitable access to land amid corporate farming in Cholistan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lahore, 16 May 2025<\/em>. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expresses deep concern over the continued marginalization of indigenous communities in Cholistan, following a fact-finding mission to the region in October 2024. The mission has underscored disturbing patterns of land appropriation, suppression of civic rights, and the expansion of corporate farming at the expense of local livelihoods and ecological sustainability.<\/p>\n

Residents across the region reported that fertile land and traditional grazing areas were being systematically appropriated, leaving livestock farmers and local communities without viable alternatives. Although the Punjab government had announced a land allotment scheme in 2010, balloting was not carried out until 2023, naming nearly 26,000 Cholistanis as beneficiaries. The mission\u2019s findings, however, suggest that the relief was problematic in design and implementation, failing to address long-standing structural issues as well as the idea that such schemes should be limited to local communities. Most locals complained that they had been allotted barren land and had not yet received official allotment letters, while non-locals had received leases for fully or partially cultivable land under the same scheme.<\/p>\n

Particularly alarming is the expansion of corporate farming to include the army\u2019s formal entry into the sector in February 2023. Under a joint venture agreement signed with the Punjab government in March 2023, a 20-year lease (extendable by 10 years) was granted on a profit-sharing basis. A Lahore High Court ruling in May 2023 that stopped the transfer of land to the army for corporate farming was overturned in July 2023, enabling land transfers under the Green Initiative Pakistan, overseen by the Special Investment Facilitation Council.<\/p>\n

The mission has also received reports of forced displacement by powerful state institutions. Locals further reported that only non-locals appeared to be benefiting from these ventures\u2014underscoring growing social and economic exclusion in the region.<\/p>\n

Equally troubling are reports that residents who attempted to peacefully protest in 2023 were allegedly denied permission by the district administration, raising serious concerns about violations of the constitutional right to peaceful assembly.<\/p>\n

HRCP calls on the federal and Punjab governments, the Cholistan Development Authority, and all state institutions concerned to institute urgent reforms to ensure transparent, equitable, and rights-based land allotment; end all illegal land occupation, regardless of the identity or influence of those involved; uphold the rule of law by ending all forms of coercion or intimidation against dissenting residents; and ensure that corporate farming initiatives do not come at the cost of human rights or environmental degradation. These reforms must also protect the rights of minorities and ensure that women and transgender persons can access and benefit from land policies equally.<\/p>\n

Asad Iqbal Butt
\nChairperson<\/p>\n

Read the full report here<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>