HYDERABAD: The district administration had to suspend an operation to dispossess dwellers of Rishi Ghat, a locality situated in the old city area, after strong resistance posed by the affected families on Monday.
The protesters gathered at a wedding hall and raised a hue and cry as soon as the bulldozers and other machinery moved into the locality to carry out a demolition drive and level the ground to facilitate construction of Abdul Sattar Edhi Road, a project of the provincial government.
They told Assistant Commissioner City Noor Hussain, who was present there to supervise the -operation, that the dwellers were not being paid the promised compensation against their properties.
MPA Nasir Qureshi, who was also present, supported the protesters’ stance.
Affected families claim promised compensation being denied to them; issue delays road construction
The families said that during a survey of the area, the officials concerned had held out the assurance that they would not be dispossessed until payment of the compensation.
MPA Qureshi endorsed their claim, and questioned why the administration was backtracking from the promise.
According to AC City, after deciding to suspend the demolition drive, said that before going ahead with the operation, occupants of these properties would be placed in three categories: (i) those who have genuine proprietary rights and have complete documents; (ii) those who have been given documents by the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) for the land that actually belongs to irrigation department’s Phuleli canal; (iii) and those who have no documents but just occupying the space.
AC Noor Hussain said that a survey had already been completed by the revenue department under the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) of 1894 through which compensation was supposed to be paid to the people whose properties were being acquired for the construction of this road, the scheme of which was approved a few years back.
The phase-I was started from Hyderabad bypass to Akbar CNG and now phase-II is to begin. The road connects bypass with Hyderabad’s old city area and it passes through a thickly populated area. Inhabitants of the area have been living there since before the Partition.
Earlier, people from Tando Agha Ismail Shah, an old city area, had also resisted the drive for not being paid the compensation.
Additional DC-I Hyderabad Gada Hussain, who is the land acquisition officer for the proposed road, says that the 4-km-long road scheme was approved in the year 2019 and that Rs870m was earmarked for payment of compensation. “Out of Rs870m, Rs500m have been released by Sindh government for bona fide property owners and this amount is being disbursed,” he said. He said that three kilometres of road has been built while one-kilometre stretch — from Sham Das Park to railway tracks near Tando Agha Ismail Shah — was pending construction due to land acquisition issues.
He said that around 1km stretch of road from Ansari Mohallah (Rishi Ghat) to Tando Agha is to be built in the second phase. He said that around 145 houses or structures are located in the area and of them documents of 69 houses were verified through the City Survey. He said that of them 15 houses were located in Ansari Mohallah and 49 in Tando Agha which were to be paid land compensation under the LAA 1894.
Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2026
