October 16, 2006	Monday	Ramazan 22, 1427

FINALLY, the Sindh government has decided not to oppose allotment of the two islands—Bundal and Buddo— to a UAE based construction giant, the Emaar Group.

Earlier, the Chief Minister of Sindh, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim said that the federal government did not take his government into confidence before such a decision and the matter will be taken up with the centre. On October 3, the Sindh Cabinet decided to support the mega-project on the two islands.

Emaar became a familiar name to people when over last few weeks leading national dailies carried a series of full page advertisements on its housing project in Islamabad. This was a huge campaign to lure people with surplus money.

In May 2006, the company announced three real estate development projects in the cities of Islamabad and Karachi. With a total investment of $2.4 billion, all the three projects are expected to be completed in the next four to five years.

Meanwhile, newspapers carried stories on the non-transparent deal of the two islands, managed by the Port Qasim Authority. Now Port Qasim Authority and Emaar Group are likely to ink an agreement to initiate this mega joint venture to convert these islands into a modern city with 15,000 housing units and commercial facilities. The islands will be connected with Karachi Defence Phase-8 through 1.5 km long bridge costing a hefty sum of $50 million (Rs3 billion).

According to the plan, the Emaar Group would invest about $43 billion over the next 13 to 16 years. The amount itself narrates the infrastructure to be erected over the next decade.

Its true that the country and specially Sindh has a very wide gap of housing facilities. Currently urban centres of the province need 135,000 housing units annually and considering the backlog it needs 200,000 houses annually. But such mega-projects are never meant to address the housing deficit. The powerful lobbies have always been behind these so-called development projects, who become beneficiary at the cost of thousands of poor people.

The Port Qasim Authority had invited bids in April this year. As a result, four groups expressed their interest in joint venture out of which Emaar Group fulfilled the required criteria. The bidder of the project was required to have at least $5 billion worth of assets, $1 billion annual income and technology to reclaim land from sea and Emaar Group was the only bidder that met these major requirements.

So far, the supporters of the mega development project (which would bring only destruction for the marginalised citizens) have not bothered to ponder on the following aspects:

How this development would affect the poor communities of fishermen living around the islands. How many would loose their passage to fishing grounds to secure their livelihood; has any one bothered to consult fishermen in this regard; has any environmental impact assessment (or initial environmental survey) of the proposed project has been undertaken? Unfortunately, almost all the state-owned and stated-supported projects flagrantly violate the Pakistan Environment Protection Act, 1997.

Has any study been conducted to assess the socio-economic and ecological damage caused due to land reclamation and mangrove cutting already carried out by the federal government organisation such as the Karachi Port Trust and Port Qasim Authority along the Karachi coast or is there any respect for historical and fundamental rights of voiceless fishermen of Sindh and Balochistan, who have become victim of so-called development in the shape of dams, barrages, housing schemes, ports and other facilities and who will the first to be adversely affected by these developments.

The islands are located closer to Korangi and Phitti creeks and are home to remaining few tracts of mangrove wetlands on Karachi coast. Thousands of poor fishermen do subsistence fishing and have their livelihood dependent on fishing grounds near the islands and creeks. The housing project will uproot them as Gwadar based fishing communities have become victim of the port development.

The systematic elimination of mangrove barrier will not only deprive poor fishermen from their livelihood but also expose coastal areas to deadly cyclones.

Unfortunately, our development champions have gone too myopic to see the long-term impact of ecological disaster that is being wrought on the coastline of Karachi in the name of development. Climate change is a growing threat for coastal areas and calls for very cautious development strategies on the two islands.