Land grabbers involved in illegally occupying government lands in Karachi were well organised and more powerful, and the administration was helpless in countering them, argued Sindh Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani during the Sindh Assembly session on Monday. Speaking during the question hour, the minister said that the land mafia had trained goons in their ranks. He said that recently, an employee of the Karachi Building Control Authority was pushed down a roof in the Saddar area by land grabbers. According to him, the Local Government Department had written to the police several times for necessary action, but the KBCA staff was still not being provided with due protection.
Durrani said that several cases pertaining to illegal occupation of government land are pending in courts. He, however, expressed his inability to take action against government officers involved in plundering national wealth in local governments during the previous tenure. The minister said that in view of directives issued by the Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly, the director-general of the Provincial Local Government Commission has been ordered to chalk out the audit schedule of the city and district governments, taluka municipal administrations, and union councils. To another question, he said that some 465 acres of land in deh Tapo, Ibrahim Hyderi, Korangi was earmarked for construction of KWSB Sewerage Treatment Plant under an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded project in 1989.
The KWSB was given possession of 409 acres on June 12, 1992. In 2005, he added, the government was informed that considerable parcels of the proposed site had been allotted to different cooperative societies and trusts, and only 100 acres of land were left for the actual project. The Sindh chief secretary has directed the Board of Revenue to cancel all leases and allotment of land reserved for the KWSB’s treatment plant, the minister added.
Replying to another question the minister said that the Karachi Strategic Development Plan-2020 has partially being implemented due to the functioning of 20 different land owing agencies in the city under Federal and provincial governments. The plan was approved on December 12, 2007 by the then city council. To another question the minister said that development authorities in Karachi, such as Malir Development Authority, and Lyari Development Authority are yet not revived, as bills are still pending with the Sindh Assembly in this regard.