KARACHI: Auction of historic site in Lyari Town stopped
By Latif Baloch
KARACHI, Dec 2: A historic building in Lyari Town has been saved from being auctioned due to the timely action taken by the Town Nazim.
It is learnt that the City Government has reversed its earlier decision in the auctioning. Instead, it has now decided to renovate the building and dedicate the same to the public.
The decision to auction the historic monument, till now housing a sub-registrar office and located near Lea Market, had stirred a controversy in the city prompting a large number of NGOs and the people having sense of and love for heritage and monuments had come out with strong resistance.
The public outrage was finally discussed at a meeting called by the City Nazim who reversed the decision which had been taken in October this year. The City Nazim also reviewed objections, raised by the Nazim of Lyari Town, to the auction for which bids had already been invited from the interested parties.
In his memorandum, submitted soon after the City Government’s decision, the Nazim of Lyari Town had told the City Nazim that the conversion of this historic building into a commercial complex would encourage the land mafia which was out to make petty financial gains out of the invaluable properties in the city without considering their cultural importance.
The memorandum was taken up for discussion at a meeting chaired by the City Nazim on Oct 30. The meeting was attended by the District Coordination Officer besides other concerned officials.
Insisting on his views, the Lyari Nazim pointed out that the building was constructed in 1912. Before the establishment of the sub-registrar office, it housed municipal vaccination centre, he recalled indicating that it had also remained in the use of sanitation section of the Health Department. All these offices, he added, were meant for providing facilities to the general public, mainly the people of Lyari.
Following the implementation of President Musharraf’s programme pertaining to the devolution of powers at grassroots level and the eventual restructuring of local bodies, the sub-registrar office was moved to some other place and the vacated historic building was abandoned for all purposes.
The proposed auction of the building coincided with the policy decision, taken recently, to generate additional revenues for the city government. Under the revised policy, a number of public properties, including this historic building, have been offered to the parties which are interested in demolishing them to construct commercial plazas on their sites.
The Lyari Town administration, however, contended that the building in question had restored its own status as the sanitation staff’s office following the shifting of the sub-registrar office. Thus, it argued, the status automatically turns the whole structure as the Lyari Town property.
To substantiate its claim on the property, the administration has maintained that the building was no more under the use and control of the defunct KMC following the establishment of modified local bodies system in Aug 2001. Therefore, it added, Section 180 of the SLGO 2001 did not apply in this case.
It referred to the Section 124 (1) of the SLGO 2001, that “properties of local governments shall be used only for public purposes” and insisted that the decision to allow this building to be used for commercial purposes was in violation of the SLGO 2001.
The meeting also discussed the auction of other abandoned sites and decided that before going ahead with the plan, renovation of shops at Chawkiwara Market and Lyari stadium would be undertaken to fetch a higher price through an open auction.
