KARACHI: Small plots, soft terms for low-income group urged
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 8: Speakers at a meeting demanded that the government should earmark at least 30,000 small plots for the low-income group people of the city annually to bridge the gap between requirement and availability.
At the consultative meeting on Housing Policy and Implementation in Karachi, organized by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, they said that plots should be offered at an affordable price and on terms and conditions that could easily be met by them.
Tasneem Siddiqui, Arif Hassan, Taj Haider, Prof Nauman Ahmed, Salim Alimuddin, Roland deSouza, Baseer Naveed, Philip Dehart, Shoaib Ismail, Peter Barnard and Shahabuddin Ghauri were among those spoke at the meeting.
They said that there was an actual requirement of between 70,000 and 80,000 new housing units per year in the city while around 28,000 housing permits were being issued in the formal sector. Nearly 32,000 units emerge in the informal sector — the kutchi abadis developed by ‘land mafia’ in collusion with government officials, they added.
They said that the land-use planning and disposal be undertaken on the basis of social considerations and not on speculative land value.
The speakers said that at present, the national as well as provincial policies had flaws as these were chalked out without taking into account the ground realities. These policies cater 20 per cent of the population regarded as upper class and do not have any concern to the problems being faced by the majority of the urban dwellers who earn less that Rs5,000 a month.
They said that nearly 50 per cent of the city’s 13.5 million people lived in kutchi abadis which was a proof of the government’s failure in properly planning and providing this basic amenity to the residents in the past 56 years.
They suggested that since the required planning and implementation would require time and political will, the government should must learn initiatives by people, NGOs and CBOs in alternative approaches. In this regard, they gave the example of various programmes of the Orangi Pilot Project, Khuda Ki Basti, etc.
They said that the low-income group people had established that they were capable and willing to pay for appropriate facilities. The financial institutions should explore creative means to offer small loans.
They suggested that funds could be made available to the intermediary organizations/ NGOs so that they could finance the poor in the kutchi abadis and loans could also be provided for purchase of land, on the pattern of the ‘community mortgage programmes’ introduced by the Philippines government.
They suggested that vacant land in the central areas be replanned for the benefit of all, particularly the economically under-privileged groups. A heavy penalty be imposed on the under-utilized urban land so that artificially inflated rates of land could be brought down and land market could become accessible to all types of income groups. All government agencies should also publish their urban land-holding annually.
EXPRESSWAY: The speakers stressed on housing rights to more than 200,000 people affected by the Lyari Expressway, many of whom were being resettled in the under-developed areas of Hawkesbay Scheme and Taiser Town. They said that proposed resettlement policy-2001 be tabled in parliament for a debate so that public concerns could be incorporated in the policy.
They suggested that the under-construction Northern Bypass would adequately carry the heavy traffic from the port. As such, the expressway project, which would create conditions hostile to environment in the already polluted atmosphere of the city, could be abandoned.
The speakers said that members of minority communities were living in some 400 KMC/CDGK quarters, comprising single-room, in Lyari. They had been constructed more than 70 years back. They urged the government not to get these quarters demolished in order to raise commercial plazas on the site as planned.
They also demanded that regular repairs be carried out in the quarters, majority of which were in a dilapidated condition.
