THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Katcha badlands’ (April 2). That the katcha areas in Sindh have been a safe haven for the criminals is beyond doubt or debate. During the construction of the Lloyd Barrage in Sukkur by the British, it was decided to build flood-protective bunds on both sides of the Indus. The land between the bunds, called katcha, was also notified by the government on July 28, 1945.

Moreover, such land is divided into four categories: keti land, which is formed by the deposition of river silt and is most suitable for agriculture use; kabooli land, which is claimed to be ancestral land with no documentary evidence; stable land, which is cultivated both during Rabi and Kharif, and unstable land, which is fit only for one winter crop; and, finally, the forest land, which belongs to the Forest Department for forestry purposes, but has long been misused.

Additionally, during 1992, the then Sindh chief minister, under direction from the federal government, directed the Board of Revenue (BoR) to undertake a survey of the katcha land so that the criminals could be flushed out and unauthorised occupants be removed to accommodate the deserving low-income communities.

The survey report of the BoR Sindh was submitted by the end of 1992 when I was the provincial chief secretary. According to the report, there was revenue land, revenue ketis, forest land, forest ketis and land under the riverbed, making a total of 1,455,000 acres. Forest land in Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana circles accounted for a total of 557,000 acres. The Forest Department also reported that about 27,000 acres of land had been encroached upon by various landowners, out of which 15,000 acres were under litigation.

Further, there was 281,464 acres of keti land under unauthorised possession in Hyderabad, Dadu, Nawabshah, Sukkur, Naushahro Feroze, Larkana, Shikarpur and Khairpur.

On the other hand, under the Land Reforms Act, 1977, the maximum ceiling of holding was officially fixed at 100 acres for irrigated land and 200 acres for the unirrigated. The land thus resumed could not be allotted to the thousands of landless tillers of the province who have been languishing below the poverty line all these years.

It is also assumed that the unauthorised holders of the land in question are very influential people who are in a mutually beneficial, though illegal, relationship with the outlaws.

The government in 1992 had proposed the establishment of tentatively 200 police checkposts, 100 on each side of the bund, throughout the length of the riverbed that were to be equipped with modern arms and ammunition, communication equipment and transport that could be used in katcha areas.

However, I retired in 1993, while the government itself could not last long thereafter, and the whole programme was put on the back-burner where it has remained to date.

Now, it is time to retrieve the entire land from the clutches of encroachers and outlaws, and allot at least 20 acres to each landless tiller of the province.

Syed Sardar Ahmad
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2024