KARACHI, April 1: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal said on Friday that the city government enjoyed Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s support in action against encroachments and land-grabbers in the city

“We have same opinion on action against intrusions on government land, particularly land allocated for amenity purposes and it is our joint effort to remove these encroachments,” he told at a reception hosted by him in honour of poets who participated in an Aalami Mushaira.

To a query, Mustafa Kamal said Dr Arbab Rahim was the chief executive of the province and he can visit every vicinity and village to know people’s problems. But, he added, as far as action against encroachments was concerned, there was complete harmony between their thinking.

He said the city government was only removing encroachments across the metropolis and not a single legal structure was razed. He said encroachments had been removed from three main roads in New Karachi Town, while 400 houses were razed in Korangi.

“They were our voters, but it was our compulsion as we are working on projects for people”.

The city nazim told newsmen that a new water supply line was being laid in Lyari at a cost of Rs230 million and work on construction of roads had started to provide travelling facilities to residents of Manghopir villages which, he said, was a proof of their impartiality.

He further said that work on revamping of water supply lines in the city started at a cost of Rs2 billion and the federal government had earmarked amount for the project, which would help in repair of leakages of pipelines. Repair work on water supply lines at a cost of Rs800 million is already under way in the city, he added.

He said Karachi’s 95 per cent water requirement would be met after 100-mdg additional water supply from K-III project and stopping wastage of 33 per cent water from seepage.

Mustafa Kamal said that the city government was taking steps to introduce e-governance in the city government, to curb corruption through technology instead of a “stick”.—PPI