January 17, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 16, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 16: Construction work on the 163-acre portion of the Gutter Baghicha lands for developing a modern park has been stopped abruptly and, taking advantage of the same, certain people have started dumping waste, junk, scrape and garbage, etc at the project site.

The dumped material includes the scrap removed from Manghopir Road which is undergoing reconstruction and the waste generated by a large number of marble factories operating within and around the vicinity of the Baghicha.

The development work on Gutter Baghicha land had been taken in hand by the city district government at an estimated cost of Rs200 million following an announcement made by President Musharraf in this regard. Addressing a rally held in the city just before the referendum he had held to legitimize his holding of the office of the president, Gen Musharraf had made the commitment that he would give the old city area a befitting park. For the purpose, he had selected the Gutter Baghicha site and ordered development of a modern park on its land.

Contracts for the development work had been awarded to four parties in July last and they were supposed to complete the same expeditiously as the park had been planned to be inaugurated sometime towards the end of 2005.

However, following the change of guards in the city district government, the work on the project came to a halt. The contractors have reportedly been telling the concerned quarters that they had stopped the work because the city government had not yet cleared the bills they had submitted to it for the work already completed.

An NGO activist, Nisar Baloch, leading a delegation of the people living around the park site, called on City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal a few days back to discuss the matter. The nazim not only assured the delegation that Gen Pervez Musharraf’s commitment would be honoured, but he also promised an early resumption of work. He said he would supervise the progress of work personally to ensure completion of the project at the earliest.

Mr Baloch regretted that not only the development work had not been resumed, but the site was also being turned into a dumping ground.

He apprehended that vested interests, eyeing the precious lands in the old city areas, might have been instrumental in getting the work on the project stopped. He appealed to the authorities concerned to hand over the development work to the 5 Corps as this would yield positive results with regard to the speedy development on the one hand, and effective check on land grabbers on the other.

The Gutter Baghicha, originally spread over a 1,017-acre amenity plot, had been reduced to some 480 acres as the remaining land had been encroached upon by land mafia over the past many years.

The land grabbing was contained to some extent when, after a hue and cry by local people, the city government moved to award the contracts of development work to four parties and gave them six months to complete the work.

Nisar Baloch, a representative of the NGOs Alliance, told Dawn that youths of the localities around Gutter Baghicha wanted to grow a forest park on the left over space within its vicinity once the modern park was completed. The idea was to save the land from being encroached upon again and to improve the park’s environment further.

The youths also planned to set up technical centres to train and develop skills of local people, especially youths, thus helping them get jobs, he said, adding that the plan would help contain unemployment.