IN the midst of their long and harrowing ordeal, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel for those affected by the Gujjar and Orangi nullah encroachment operations in Karachi. Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah announced at a press conference on Friday that the provincial government had decided to allot 80 square yard plots to the 6,500 families displaced as a result of the massive exercise. To that end, he said that the Supreme Court would be approached to provide Rs10bn out of the funds being recovered from Bahria Town on account of the land development firm’s settlement dues. Part of the money, he said, would go towards the construction of houses for the families affected by the anti-encroachment operation.

This is the first long-term solution proposed by the Sindh government to address the displacement of the evictees. Thus far, the federal government has agreed to pay two years’ rent to the affected families at the rate of Rs15,000 per month and, later, resettlement under the Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme. However, given this scheme is in a nascent stage, resettlement under it would be a very distant prospect. In any case, it is the provincial government’s responsibility to undertake this exercise, just as it was its responsibility in the first place to provide these families with affordable housing on a legally sound basis which would have prevented their homes from being reduced to rubble today. Instead, expediency drove local authorities decades ago to issue leases and NOCs for the provision of utilities for the residents in these areas. Anti-encroachment drives along Gujjar nullah have been initiated many a time: in 2016, more than 4,000 structures were reportedly razed to the ground along a 24km stretch of the waterway. Last year’s catastrophic urban flooding after a prolonged spell of monsoon rains, however, brought matters to a head, and this time the Supreme Court seems determined that the authorities see the nullahs cleared of encroachments. In most evictions that have taken place in Karachi’s history, promises made to the affected people have not been fulfilled in their entirety. For instance, only 30,000 of the 80,000 displaced due to the Lyari Expressway construction were resettled, and a mere 33pc received even the meagre compensation — Rs50,000 — that was announced. This time, the apex court must ensure the Sindh government fulfils its obligations within a reasonable amount of time to those rendered homeless by the operation.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2021