KARACHI, Sept 6: The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has sealed the office and records of the Lines Area Redevelopment Project (LARP) without disclosing the reasons behind the move to the officials concerned, Dawn has learnt. An LARP official said that the Shahra-i-Quaideen project office containing the records of the over 30-year-old project had been sealed and the staff had been directed to attend office at Liaquatabad’s Super Market.

“We don’t know exactly why this move has been taken,” said LARP project director Fareed Yousafani.

“We’ve verbally been asked to shift from the sealed office and the records are now under the control of the CDGK.”

He added that while the move would not immediately impact ongoing projects, it would greatly affect routine work and procedural work.

Located in the heart of the city, Lines Area is bounded by M.A. Jinnah Road (north), Sharea Faisal (south), the Sindhi Muslim Housing Society and PECHS (east) and Saddar (west). The LARP is responsible for 462 acres divided into eight sectors.

According to a senior Sindh governmental official who has been associated with LARP for over 15 years, the area was developed as a cantonment and barracks to house the armed forces were constructed during the first and second world wars.

“In the decade after partition, a large number of immigrants occupied the empty portions of Lines Area and it became very congested,” he said.

Over the years, the area was rendered uninhabitable by inadequate sanitation and health facilities, and plagued by frequent flooding.

In 1973, the now defunct Karachi Development Authority notified the Lines Area Redevelopment Project to address the issues. The official said that in 1980, the project was converted into an independent organisation headed by an executive committee and an authorised board. It was launched in 1981 as a self-financing initiative.

“The Lines Area constituted one of the worst slums in Karachi,” said the official, adding that the LARP is believed to be the first of its kind project in Pakistan.

However, while more than thirty years have elapsed since the project was conceptualised, it remains incomplete. Most of the commercial plots have been sold over time and the sanitation, medical and infrastructural inadequacies remain unaddressed. “In fact,” conceded the government official, “if the government wants to shut the project down, it should be termed a failure.”

The authorities say that the project records have been sealed in order to streamline the system since LARP was being ignored due to internal indiscipline. “We plan to re-launch the project with renewed force and effectiveness,” said District Coordination Officer Javed Hanif. “The record is being computerised, which is why we’ve asked the staff to attend the other office.”

However, he gave no time frame for the project re-launch and said merely that work would resume when the CDGK found matters in line with required standards.