KARACHI – The Sindh government has decided in principle to renege on promises of handing residential plots in Karachi and Hyderabad to flood-affected families in an attempt to further reconciliatory politics with coalition partners, especially the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan Today has learnt.
The plan of not giving any plot districts to the flood hit people is just aimed at fulfilling the demands of the Sindh’s coalition partner – Muttahida Qaumi Movement, well-placed sources told Pakistan Today. After the flash-floods of 2010 displaced thousands in Sindh, the government had announced allotting plots to more than 15,000 flood-affected families.
In principle, the plan was supposed to rehabilitate the affected since their houses, livestock and other valuables were washed away during the floods. According to the government’s plan announced earlier, at least 10,000 flood-hit families were to get 120-square-yard plots in various parts of Karachi, while the rest were to get land in the divisional headquarters of various districts – Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana and Mirpurkhas – under the Goth Abad scheme of the Board of Revenue.
The entire plan has reportedly been cancelled after the MQM expressed serious reservation of handing land in the port city of Karachi to the flood-affected families. The MQM’s reservation over this issue were forwarded to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, who assured the partners that no such plan would be materialized, sources claimed.
Apart from giving plots to the affected, the Sindh government was also supposed to provide financial assistance to the families displaced by the floods. This plan could not be executed, sources said, because of the government’s financial constraints. Sources claimed that more than 18,000 acres of land retrieved by the Revenue Department of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) from the land mafia in different parts of Karachi were once again being encroached.
“If the Sindh government undertakes a serious initiative of handing out plots in Karachi, then they are not likely to face any difficulties in terms of availability of land,” sources said, adding that encroachments have started again since the land was not being utilised.
