PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to develop two new phases of Hayatabad Township on land sharing basis where landowners would get a developed plot of a kanal in exchange for four kanals of land. A committee headed by Peshawar Commissioner Riaz Khan Mehsud met here on Thursday to chalk out the way forward for the project and was attended by Member of National Assembly Shandana Gulzar Khan, director general Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) Mohammad Naeem and other officials attended the meeting. Mr Mehsud told Dawn that they had identified the landownership and possession as the main issue, as the landownership on papers belonged to Peshawar residents while it was in possession of tribesmen from Khyber. He said the district administration revenue teams would visit the proposed project sites to assess the built-up area and other aspects of the land and afterwards the administration would look into the issue of possession of the land. Mr Mehsud said that Hayatabad Township population stood at 50,000 in early 2000s, however, now it had jumped to over 350,000, according to the last census. He said the population growth had been spurred by large-scale internal migration and there was urgent need to expand the township and add new phases to it. He said there was about 1,000 acres of land existed next to Hayatabad Phase-VI where the proposed Phase VII and Phase IX could be developed. Besides, he said, the site for the proposed new phases was located at prime location, at the junction of Detour Road, southern bypass, Ring Road and Frontier Road. He said Hayatabad Township was developed at over 23,000 kanals of land while the proposed new phases would be around 8,000 to 10,000 kanals. He added that PDA had been tasked to develop the proposed new phases of the upscale neighborhood. Commissioner Peshawar, according to a statement issued here, directed the officials of district administration and PDA to address the complaints of the landowners and ensure payment of compensation at the earliest.Meanwhile, PDA invited e-tenders for the construction of 8.7 kilometres long missing portion of Peshawar Ring Road. The authority invited the e-tenders on Thursday for construction of the portion from Warsak Road to Nasir Bagh. The project carries a price tag of Rs17 billion. The tenders would open on January 15.