25 October 2004	Monday	10 Ramazan 1425

KARACHI, Oct 24: Tikri village, located on the main Hawkesbay Road, has remained neglected over the decades by civic agencies who, instead of developing the locality , have in fact turned the village into a cesspool and an outlet for discharging sewage the city en route to the sea.

The village with a population of 6,000 indigenous fishermen is seen disregarded, where sewage finds its course through the houses of its inhabitants to get to the sea.

"I have personally met with Naib-Nazim, city government's, Tariq Hasan Khan, who visited the area twice, but no favourable steps have been taken so far to improve the sewerage system here," said Ms Lali Shaikh, councillor of Union Council Mauripur.

The villagers are engaged in their livelihood activities; some of them go to fishing and others have jobs in the near-by salt industry. They are unaware of the problems because of their difficulties and do not complain to the nazims and other authorities.

Kausar Sadiq, the village activist said, "Sewerage has remained a main problem since long, and especially in monsoon seasons, when people face difficulties."

"Obviously, this village is the oldest and is a part of the city, but it has been deprived of basic facilities including potable water," he said.

Mr Sadiq, recalling the past, said the village had produced world-famous boxers and football players in the past, but now the main playground was under occupation of land grabbers. The successors of those players were being deprived of the source of recreation in their own locality itself, he added.

The villagers said that the government built a five-room school buildings for girls in 1995, but all in vain, as the building was at the centre of the cesspool, and the girls could not go there, not even for a single day.

Now, the building without a boundary wall was abandoned and said to be a safe haven for addicts for the last many years.

The past governments had also approved millions of rupees for water and sewerage projects. The site with a tube well and a pond could still be seen. - PPI