KMC plans to resettle 29,000 people living along Gujjar Nullah

Karachi
The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), with the help of the Sindh government, is mulling over evicting around 30,000 ‘illegal settlers’ from 900 acres of the Gujjar Nullah, which has been reduced to about 15 feet from its original width of 100 feet.
After the chief minister approved a sum of Rs1 billion for the project, the idea was proposed and discussed at length during a high-level meeting presided over by KMC municipal commissioner Samiuddin Siddiqui at the Civic Centre on Wednesday, The News learnt.
There are 30 storm water drains in Karachi but the city gets inundated after every heavy downpour because the water ways have been encroached upon by ‘illegal’ settlers who have leased lands.
Most of the Gujar Nullah passes through the district Central and a bit of it in district West.
The KMC is now gearing up to remove encroachment from these storm water drains. In this regard, work to evict the 29,000 people settled on land of the Gujjar Nullah will be started soon, said KMC’s director-general of technical services Niaz Soomro while talking to The News.
He said alternate land will be provided to the displaced families. “Though this is an uphill task for the government and municipal administration but we hope that when the people are provided with an alternative place of residence they will agree to move,” he said. “The Sindh government has finally decided to begin removing encroachment and a consultant had also drawn a working map.”
“The Gujjar Nullah will be cleared in three phases over a period of four financial years after which the KMC will upgrade it to its natural state,” said Soomro.
The preliminary plan chalked out for the upgradation of Gujjar Nullah, the KMC plans to construct a 300-foot-wide road on either side of the biggest storm water drain of the city with a 24-foot-wide footpath. The length of the road will be around 13.5 kilometres and will be connected to the main sewage network of the city.
Soomro said to prevent encroachers from settling again on the land, the roads and footpaths will be blocked by barriers.
When asked if the government will find it hard to implement its writ with the illegal settlers, Soomro disclosed that a senior officer of the army had pledged his support.
So far, he said, the tentative cost for placing families in alternate locations was around Rs13 billion, including the costs of building infrastructure and providing basic amenities.
However, Soomro said the government would still have to take into consideration the cost of the land and remove political interference, which was anticipated.
During an earlier anti-encroachment drive by former mayor Mustafa Kamal, it was revealed that a large number of settlers had leased the land from the government.
Another anti-encroachment drive had been planned two years ago and all political parties had agreed to go with the plan at a meeting held at the Governor House but it too did not bear any results.