The Sindh High Court on Tuesday once again directed the Sindh chief secretary to file a comprehensive and detailed report on a petition seeking rehabilitation of the families displaced by the 2010 floods.
The petitioner, flood relief camp committee, which is a representative organisation of thousands of flood-affected families, moved the court for rehabilitation of the displaced people. Counsel for petitioner submitted that thousands of families displaced by 2010 floods were given temporary shelter in Labour Square and Gulshan-e-Maymar where they were given all utilities and their children were getting education in the schools set up by authorities.
He told the judges that the provincial government wanted to dispossess them of the temporary accommodation without providing them alternative place. In this regard, he said, the Sindh Workers Welfare Board had published advertisement inviting applications for the allotment of flats to industrial workers. The court was requested to restrain Sindh government from depriving the affecttees of this temporary shelter.
The Sindh Workers Welfare Board and some industrial workers have also filed separate petitions seeking court directions for the authorities to evacuate the Labour Square flats. The petitioners submitted that the government had announced a housing scheme for the workers and constructed around 1,000 residential flats but their possession was not given to them despite they had already completed all the preconditions.
A division bench, headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, summoned a detailed and comprehensive report from the chief secretary in the matter till February 20. The bench also extended its interim order, restraining the government from dispossessing occupants of the accommodation.
