June 27, 2004

Why do katchi abadis come up, especially when the poor have to pay for the land and the primitive utilities they get? Aquila Ismail explains the reason

It has been widely documented that housing in katchi abadis develops in an incremental way. One of the major determinants of the pace and level of development of houses is the degree of recognition of the settlement, which in its turn is reflected by items of the infrastructure the public agencies develop in an incremental — albeit not very systematic — way. Full recognition through legalization is therefore only one milestone on the long road from an incipient and tentative unserviced cluster of huts to a fully legal and serviced neighbourhood with decent permanent housing. It should be noted, however, that even when this stage has been reached, the inhabitants keep extending and improving their houses, for example, by adding a storey, raising or replacing roofs, etc.

In the process of development, horizontal and vertical expansion, rooms are added to the houses. This is especially relevant in view of the tendency towards growing household sizes. In addition, larger dwelling units house one household. While overall, 84.5 per cent of the dwelling units house one household only, eight per cent provide shelter to two households, four per cent to three families and a few to four, five and even six households. The total average number of households per dwelling unit is 1.27. In view of the occurrence of more than one household per dwelling unit, the number of rooms used by the household interviewed is consistently somewhat lower than the total number of rooms on the plot.

Infrastructure

While the quality and distribution of items of the infrastructure still leave much to be desired, many households in katchi abadis enjoy a decent level of servicing. Nearly 30 per cent of the housing units have private water connections while 60 to 70 per cent have gas and electricity connections. Houses in katchi abadis with buckets or no latrines at all are rare — on an average only 13 per cent of them. However, it should be noted that — contrary to the figures for water, electricity and gas — the figures for the sewerage system point to the most ‘primitive’ solutions, i.e. either the bucket latrine or no latrine at all, so that here low figures have a positive meaning. The reason is that it is difficult to attach values to the different systems used. While it might be argued that a septic tank or a connection to a water-borne sewerage system are the most sophisticated solutions, the households do not always clearly distinguish between a septic tank and a soak-pit; at the same time, in Pakistani cities, a high proportion of water borne sewerage does not function, so that having a connection to such a system is not always meaningful.

In view of the frequent system failures, one might of course argue that the figures presented for water and electricity connections suggest too rosy a picture of the situation. Yet these figures do indicate that, within local constraints, a fairly high number of households in katchi abadis have attained the best possible conveniences.

Opposition to katchi abadis

To the rich and the affluent middle classes, katchi abadis are an eyesore. They detest their existence. The value of their own property goes down if a katchi abadi emerges in their neighbourhood. They look upon katchi abadis as filthy and environmentally polluted areas with their inhabitants prone to social evils such as drug abuse, gambling, prostitution and all sorts of crimes. They also think that these areas are the hotbed of social and political unrest.

Most bureaucrats, city planners, engineers and developers also detest the katchi abadis. These abadis challenge their aesthetic sense and commercial interests. They would like to have them bulldozed and utilize the land for more profitable uses, such as high rise buildings or parks. The existence of katchi abadis, according to them, also reflects the authorities’ incompetence in keeping the city environment clean and free of encroachers. Often, they accuse the ‘land mafia’ of creating this menace and the NGOs for supporting it. They are also opposed to the agencies’ initiating development work in these settlements.

Error of perception

Contrary to common perception, katchi abadi dwellers are neither criminals, drug pushers, pimps, illegal immigrants, terrorists or left-wing revolutionaries. They are ordinary, law abiding simple folks, eking out an existence. Of course all abadis have their quotas of antisocial elements and crooks. Also, there is no doubt that some of the katchi abadis provide protection to illegal immigrants, but then, no locality of a big city is free of them.

Very few people pay serious attention to what is happening around them. Still fewer try to know why people are migrating to the cities. It is not easy to leave the protective social network of one’s home and land up in cities which do not promise much more than mere survival. Upon arrival in the city, they need a piece of land with minimal services at an affordable price which they can pay in easy instalments. They need services, water and transport. They may also need credit. Most of all, they need jobs. Almost without exception, it is the private or informal sector which is helping them. They have their own health care system, their own educational institutions, their own places of entertainment, and their own arrangements for obtaining water, electricity, transport, sewage disposal, solid waste management, etc. Most parents in katchi abadis send their children to private commercial schools run by the local entrepreneurs in their abadis. They know the value of education and do not depend on government schools which are not available everywhere and are of poor standard. In some katchi abadis in Karachi the literacy rate is as high as 80 per cent.

It is not necessarily cheaper to live in katchi abadis instead of the formal neighbourhood which is often the reason stated for the rise of illegal squatter settlements. After research in three Asian cities it was concluded that the informal is not cheaper, and that over a ten year period formal housing might even be more attractive to these people. Also, the governments can by no means supply enough land for settling the growing numbers in the low-income groups. So people do not really have a choice. Popular housing in the long run does not cost less but there is no option for the urban poor.

The urban housing agencies put forth two constraints in respect of land supply. The first is that there is no land. This is more an argument advanced by the bureaucracy than a reality on the ground because there is enough land in Karachi as opposed to the land situation in most Indian cities. However, it is true that local governments have to go through a long procedure before they can actually give away the land.

The second is that there are no resources to supply plots. This usually means there is no pre-finance because the land sales and leases generate revenues, which may be sufficient to cover the costs. The consequences of this shortage in supply are threefold: (a) there will remain much competition for the formal plots; (b) many people have no choice and depend on the informal market where there is usually no security of tenure and no facilities; (c) people who have obtained plots through formal schemes might sell their plots for a much higher market price.

Katchi abadis and the government

The existence and increase in the numbers of katchi abadis have already started causing problems to the ruling elite. When 50 per cent of the population do not own land legally, it means that the state exchequer has neither received the cost of development, nor do the utility agencies receive user charges. This is not to say that the katchi abadi dwellers have not paid money to acquire land or are not paying money for getting water or electricity, but that the official agencies fail to provide these services legally. Their procedures are cumbersome and the incidence of corruption is very high. Daily wage earners cannot afford to visit the offices of the civic agencies daily for months together to get a connection. So they take it illegally and pay the linesmen and valve operators at fixed rates. They are accused of not paying, but in fact they are paying more than what is due and are being exploited in the bargain. In the process, the government agencies are getting poorer while its functionaries are becoming richer.

Obviously, the economic costs of society’s failure to accommodate its less fortunate members are tremendous. Utility organizations run into huge deficits and neither proper maintenance nor any development activity can be undertaken by them. The entire burden is shifted to the consumers who pay their bills regularly. But if the poor migrants could get a small plot of land, they would improvize a house with their own resources, building as they live there. They would have willingly paid the government for their plot of land as they are also ready to pay for water, electricity, gas, etc.

The emergence of katchi abadis is the ‘informal’ sector’s response to the housing needs of the poor. At the same time, it is an indication of society’s failure in integrated planning keeping the grassroot realities in view. If the economic system had ensured well spread-out progress, was equitable and just, and met the socioeconomic needs of all segments of society, if city planning were in the hands of professionals having a vision and the capacity to meet the needs of the ever expanding urban areas, there would hardly be any katchi abadi in any city.

Katchi abadis, after all, are there and keep increasing in number and size because about half of the population of our fast growing cities is too poor to be able to buy or rent a house or a plot of land, or to obtain loans or mortgages to do so, in a legal way. Yet, there are very few shelterless people in the literal sense: practically all of these poor do, somehow or the other, find ways of sheltering themselves. Thus, it would appear that the problem is not so much of a technical or even financial nature. Rather it is the law, the regulations and the lack of appropriate planning which force a large part of the population into seeking illegal ways of obtaining a roof over their heads.

Logically, a realistic policy of providing shelter for the poor would start from the poors’ own huge potential of finding solutions to their problems. Rather than labelling these solutions as substandard or illegal, the government’s task would be to guide and control such solutions; rather than frustrating the initiatives of the poor, the government would do better supporting them. Such supportive policies, which have found recognition internationally since the early 1970s, basically consist of two components. One is the recognition, legalization and upgradation of existing spontaneous settlements, thus integrating, them into the ‘legal city’. The other half of the twin approach aims at preventing the springing up of fresh illegal settlements by providing a legal and affordable alternative.

Excerpted with permission from

The Story of SKAA: Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority

Edited by Aquila Ismail

City Press, 316 Madina City Mall, Abdullah Haroon Road, Karachi-74400

Tel: 021-5650623, 5213916

Email: cp@citypress.cc

Website: www.citypress.cc

ISBN 969-8380-71-X

135pp. Rs395

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