KARACHI, Oct 5: Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has directed Sindh Chief Secretary Dr Mutawakkil Kazi to take steps for the establishment of a public park.
This directive has been issued on a letter sent to the prime minister by Nisar Baloch of Karachi’s NGOs Alliance, in which he had drawn the PM’s attention towards the announcement made by President Musharraf at the Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum. The president had directed to convert the Baghicha into a befitting park while performing inauguration ceremony of Quaid-i-Azam Mausoleum Park on April 28, 2002.
City Nazim Naimatullah Khan had also announced that “Gutter Baghicha” would be converted into a park.
Mr Baloch’s letter stated, “No action has been taken on the ACE-I’s directives to cancel the allotment of 200 acres of amenity land to a private housing society nor the concerned FIR No 56/2001 dated October 20, 2001 lodged against officials involved in illegal allotments was being pursued.”
It may be mentioned here that the Gutter Baghicha, which was originally spread over 1,016 acres, was reduced to only 469 acres owing to the collaboration between land grabbers and vested interests functionaries of the defunct KMC.
A full bench of the Supreme Court had directed the city government, which was successor of the defunct KMC, to submit a compliance report regrading unlawful conversion by KMC of parts of over 1,016 acres amenity plot to commercial, industrial and residential use. This order was passed by the court in the human rights case No 6-K/1993 on May 29, 2003.
The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) had also submitted a statement in the court that the amenity plot must be used as a park to combat the environmental pollution in the densely populated area.
In July 2002, the chief secretary also held a meeting with the city government officials, Shehri, CBE and representatives of the area residents to sort out the issue so that development work could be undertaken to implement the directive of President Musharraf.
When the chief secretary’s attention was drawn towards fresh encroachment attempts, he ordered to complete the survey and designing work of the Baghicha within 15 days.
According to the survey, only 469 acres land had been left out of 1,016 acres amenity plot whose original boundary still exists stretching from old Golimar to Petrol pump in SITE area and from TP-1 to Mewashah graveyard.
Talking to Dawn, Mr Baloch expressed apprehension that the work was being delayed due to some unscrupulous city government officials, who happened to be the office-bearers of the respective cooperative society.
In this connection, he referred to the misuse of open space by numerous town administration officials, who had started using the amenity plot as a garbage dumping site instead of taking the refuse trucks to the landfill site at Gujro, Surjani Town.
Mr Baloch said that an all-parties conference has been planned on Oct 10 to finalize the strategy to compel the officials concerned to expedite the process of implementing the directive of President and
the city Nazim to convert the Gutter Baghicha into a public park.
He said that the inhabitants of transe Lyari had been deprived of the amenity plot by converting its open space into residential and commercial sites in sheer violation of the rules.