KARACHI: “We are wrapping up business here. What are we to do? We have been told to vacate this area and leave by Thursday,” said a plant nursery owner on Korangi Road.

Workers of all the nurseries on either side of the road presenting a green belt were busy loading their potted plants on trucks leaving behind only vacant brown spots.

“The plant nurseries were allowed to do business here since 1988 by the Defence Housing Authority [DHA]. It was a 30-year contract which is ending now. We have also received notices from the Cantonment Board Clifton [CBC] ordering us to leave,” said another nursery owner. “We only realised after receiving the notices that the green belt actually falls under the CBC, not DHA. But all these years we had been paying monthly rent to DHA,” he added.

One nursery owner said that he was paying Rs31,000 to DHA for his nursery. “In comparison the city government only charges the nurseries in their area Rs5,000. But we were here for the location as the DHA residents also kept their homes green by buying plants from us. They were our biggest customers,” he said.

When asked where they were moving to, the nursery owners said that it has all happened so quickly and without any warning that they don’t have another place ready just yet. “We have come up with makeshift solutions for now. Some of the plants we are shifting to a friend’s nursery in Korangi or Landhi, some at our own as well as at the homes of friends. We need to quickly move right now. Once that is done, we will start thinking about where to start business again,” said one of them.

In their urgency, the nurseries were also selling their plants at cheap rates, something that the residents were happy to take advantage of. “Our area looked cool and clean thanks to these nurseries. They served a double purpose, keeping DHA green as well as doing business. Look at the dividers,” a resident gestured ahead. “They are just grass with a shrub here or there. I wonder if the CBC or the DHA will be able to bring so many plants here after removing the nurseries. It will look so bare,” she said.

When Dawn contacted the DHA regarding the matter, a spokesperson there said that it did not concern them and to contact CBC instead. “As far as these nurseries go, CBC knows best as this was and is their issue, not ours,” the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, a CBC spokesperson said that they were doing all this on court orders. “Well, it is all a part of the anti-encroachment drive under way in the rest of the city, too,” he said. When reminded that the nurseries were adding to the greenery of the area, he said that the CBC will also make efforts to restore the green belt.

Learning of this, one nursery owner shook his head and reminded that they were legal tenants while also pointing to the K-Electric meters installed at all the nurseries. “Had we been encroaching here, how come we were allowed utilities? We have been paying our bills regularly too,” he claimed.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2018