Efforts to clear Gujjar Nullah sputter on

Karachi
With only one bulldozer at the disposal of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), the ongoing anti-encroachment operation at the Gujjar Nullah authority seems to be ineffective in the face of stiff resistance from residents.
On Monday, the operation to a screeching halt again as residents staged another protest and blocked the road outside Cafe Pyala against razing of their homes.
Just on the onset of monsoon season in Karachi, the KMC began a drive to remove illegal construction from the land of Gujjar Nullah to widen the natural water-flow area of the storm water drain.
Since then the operation has been suspended repeatedly on account of vehement protests by the residents of houses being razed and also on account of shortage of machinery.
Informed sources inside the KMC told The News that there was an acute shortage of funds and the anti-encroachment staff busy in the drive, led by Deputy Commissioner Central Afzal Zaidi, on Gujjar Nullah had only one bulldozer at their disposal.
In this situation, the operation on Monday came to a halt again as the residents protested by burning tires and staging a sit-in in front of the Cafe Pyala, said a senior KMC officer.
The residents whose houses have been demolished by the KMC’s anti-encroachment staff continue to live on the same location without a roof over their heads.
So far the KMC has demolished about 300 houses obstructing the flow of Gujjar Nullah, situated at the rear of Cafe Pyala, resulting in widening of the storm water drain by about 60 feet from eight feet. So far, three cattle pens have also been removed from the nullah.
The government plans to construct a 13.5-kilometre-long road on either side of the Gujjar Nullah. So far, The News learnt, only a kilometre of the land has been cleared for this purpose.
As the protesters continued to pelt the KMC’s anti-encroachment staff with stones, the operation was put off till Tuesday.
The Sindh chief secretary Mohammad Siddique Memon while talking to The News said the residents had built houses on encroached government land and their constructions were illegal.
A senior officer of the KMC commented that the leases obtained by the owners of houses built on the land of Gujjar Nullah had been cancelled. He said the chief minister had issued instruction for the removal of encroachers from the land of Gujjar Nullah.
However, the responsibilities of clearing storm water drains is actually of the district municipal corporations, not the KMC.
However, the district municipal corporations are almost always short of funds for even recurring expenses.