KARACHI, May 12: Adviser to Chief Minister on Local Government, Waseem Akhtar, has called for speeding up work on regularisation of katchi abadis in the light of directives issued by President Pervez Musharraf. A directive in this regard was issued by the Advisor at a meeting held under his chairmanship for monitoring the directives issued by the president for regularisation of katchi abadies and their development.

Waseem Akhtar emphasised that not only the katchi abadies be developed, but emergence of more abadis be stopped.

He referred to the directives issued by the President whereby he had called for preparation of lists of katchi abadis which came into being on the land of various departments after March 23, 1985.

He said that compliance to this presidential directive was the responsibility of all departments, but it remained incomplete even after a passage of long time and now the department of Katchi Abadies and the Local Government Department were paying attention to this.

The advisor said we want development of our province and city and establishment of beautiful settlements with provision of all basic facilities to the people so that they could live a comfortable life and collective steps would have to be taken and our lands cleared of illegal encroachments.

In the meeting, DG Katchi Abadies gave details of the Presidential directives and informed that since March 23, 1985, the katchi abadies which came into being numbered 1,293 and of them 1,157 are eligible for regularisation under Sindh Katchi Abadis Act 1987. Of them, 932 Abadies have been notified while residents of 750 Katchi Abadis have been granted proprietary rights. Similarly, development work had been carried out in more than 400 Katchi Abadis.

He said in the light of Presisent’s directive, the department of Katchi Abadis is also working on a plan of low-cost housing and this scheme has been started in Kotri, Gharo, Larkana and Sukkur while matters are being sorted out with concerned departments for acquiring land in other districts.

In a presentation, Javed Ali from SUPARCO said Katchi Abadis can be checked through satellite imaging and also new abadis can be controlled besides preparing land record.

It was decided to hold a separate meeting with SUPARCO in this respect so that satellite images can be obtained.

It was also decided that the local government department will issue letters to all the DCOs in the province to prepare data of katchi abadis coming into being after March 23, 1985 within a month and send it to the DG Katchi Abadis so that a clear-cut policy could be chalked out and recommendations be sent to federal government thereof. — APP