January 19, 2008	Saturday	Muharram 09, 1429

KARACHI, Jan 18: Residents of Lyari Town are exposed to serious hazards due to increasing transportation activity and fast degrading environment largely attributed to the warehousing facilities mostly in the residential areas of the town.

Vulnerability of local citizens to various hazards became abundantly evident during the recent spate of violence during which anti-social elements broke into the residential areas to plunder the warehouses and set them on fire.

Most of the warehouses were built, procured or hired about 60 years ago and they have been operating since then.

The facilities are considered to be economical because the entrepreneurs operating the warehouses have the advantage of cheap labour force in the town and that, too, very close to the country’s busiest port.

Emergence of countless small industrial units, largely having child labour among their workforce, is also linked to the same concept. Operating mainly in densely populated localities, these units run day and night creating noise and air pollution, besides exposing the people living around these units to serious health hazards.

Although there are many factories having valid legal permission, a large number of others producing plastic goods, substandard soap, counterfeit spices and other merchandise have been in existence illegally for years. Some of them use highly dangerous chemicals and there have been cases when such materials stocked at certain units played havoc with life and property of citizens.

Many ginning factories being operated in the congested localities of Rangiwara, Singoo Lane, Usmanabad and Nawa Lane have already been exposing people to skin and respiratory diseases as a senior doctor at the Lyari General Hospital states that such diseases are common in these areas.

A CBO representative, Abid Brohi, said the reason for the mushroom growth of industrial units in the residential areas of the old town areas was the availability of cheap labour, child labour and port-related facilities. He deplored that children were being employed in these high-risk units without any security and guarantees supposed to be offered to a worker under the relevant industrial laws, rules and regulations.

A survey shows that more than 300 such units exist in Lyari Town and hundreds more in the adjoining old city areas.

Most of the warehousing facilities had a temporary lease issued in the 1940s and 1950s. The lands under their use were categorised as “CDC plots” and after the expiry of their lease, the owners got it extended in connivance with the officials concerned, according to the social organizations functioning in the town.