HYDERABAD, Jan 9: The Shehri Ittehad Qasimabad, a conglomerate of political parties, NGOs and business community, has threatened to launch a protest movement if the problems of the taluka were not resolved.

The leaders of its coordination committee while speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Friday, said the people were being held as hostages in the hands of builders' mafia, which had recovered tens of millions of rupees on the pretext of internal and external charges with the connivance of HDA, but failed to provide any of the civic amenities to the people.

They said the gutter water had entered into the houses and there was no trace of Rs80 million given by the previous governments and the World Bank for the water treatment plant.

They said the underground water level was increasing with every passing day due to indifferent attitude of the district government. They said there had been an alarming increase in thefts in absence of streetlights.

They said the Hesco had made the lives of the people miserable by issuing detection bills. They said at least 1,760 detection bills had been issued in one month to cover the loss of power leakage.

They said as no official accommodation had been earmarked for Qasimabad police station, it was moving from one building to another. They said same was the case with the taluka post office, which was functioning in one dilapidated room of the HDA.

They pointed out that governments of Liaquat Jatoi and Muzaffar Hussain Shah had allocated Rs1 million and Rs2 million, respectively, for the upgradation of Hilal Ahmer hospital but this amount was spent on the Latifabad Hilal Ahmer hospital.

They alleged the Qasimabad police had taken over the possession of the playground for the construction of residential quarters, police station and TPO's office.

They demanded that the police should be ejected from the playground and temporary office of Nadra be converted into a permanent one. They accused the state organizations of patronising criminals and said that every vehicle of a multinational company that entered Qasimabad was forced to pay "bhatta" to criminals.

They said in nine days, 12 armed robberies were committed in different houses and three shops were looted by the bandits. They warned if the grievances of over 200,000 people of Qasimabad town were not resolved, the people would launch a protest movement throughout Sindh against the authorities.

Those who spoke at the news conference included Jam Saqi, Tanvir Shaikh, Sanaullah Shaikh, Nazeer Qureshi, Zain Daudpoto, Yamin Soomro and Ali Hassan Jatoi.

BOR: The senior member, Board of Revenue, Sindh has notifiedfor the information of growers/land owners that the date for payment of Jamabandi items viz Abiana, land tax, drainage cess and local cess has been fixed as June 30 (instead of July 31) from the year 2003-04 onwards in order to bring revenue year at par with financial year.