KARACHI, Oct 7: Jobless youths, who were allotted plots in the defunct Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s cottage industries schemes more than eight years ago, have not yet been handed over the possession of their plots.

The defunct KMC had allotted plots to educated jobless youths in its two cottage industries which were set up in Landhi and Orangi in 1993 after completing the process of allotment through balloting.

However, the defunct corporation’s officials did not hand over the possession of the plots to the allottees despite a lapse of over eight years, on different pretexts.

The perturbed allottees told Dawn that whenever they approached the officials of the defunct corporation with a request to hand over the possession of their plots, they were told that their plots had either been encroached upon by the land mafia or the internal development works of the cottage industries had not been completed.

They said that although they had brought the issue to the notice of the defunct Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s former administrators on several occasions and had also staged demonstrations to protest the delay in handing over possession of the plots, no official had, so far, bothered to help solve their lingering problem.

Accusing the officials concerned of not taking any interest in the matter, they urged the city Nazim to direct the officials to hand over the possession of their plots without any further loss of time, and taking punitive action against those officials of the defunct KMC and the Board of Revenue who helped the land mafia encroach upon the cottage industries’ plots.