According to a news report, 23 per cent of the buildings are unsafe for human occupancy while overall there is an acute housing shortage in the country. Some of the houses were weakened by earthquakes, some have outlived their lifespan, while many are endangered by the activities of the neighbouring dwellers. In the big cities multistoried buildings are being constructed with inferior materials that are prone to crumble under their own weight.
But in the smaller cities which are more likely to lack the necessary infrastructural groundwork, houses have to be built on the outskirts where the surrounding area is still being used for agricultural purposes and WAPDA 11kv distribution lines are passing at random through those fields. The owners of agricultural land are not willing to cede a few feet of ground next to the new building so that their irrigation water destroys the foundations of the newly constructed houses causing those buildings to start cracking early on.
An example of this is a house constructed by a retired government employee in Chah Chashma locality in mauza Chak Mithan on Alipur Road in Muzaffargarh city suburb surrounded by agricultural land owned by a lawyer. The lawyer did not allow the house owner to build a small embankment to keep irrigation water at bay, so the old man’s boundary wall collapsed and had to be reconstructed by him at a heavy cost. Now the same lawyer is threatening with unrelenting litigation and pressure from his lawyers’ group to prevent him from taking any measures to safeguard his house. The district administration is silent and unhelpful in the matter, perhaps feeling intimidated by the lawyers’ lobby. Other house building aspirants are also hesitant to undertake new constructions around the city due to such problems and as a result the city is becoming overcrowded, unhygienic, and dirty.
The Muzaffargarh district authorities are requested to ban irrigation water from getting anywhere nearer than at least 10 feet from any residential construction in the city suburbs and the 11kv lines be removed from private plots.
ARIF HUSSAIN
Muzaffargarh