As the fears of rain and flood damages may lessen with the fading of monsoons, the dreads of impending demolitions shall engulf the residents of Zia-ul-Haq Colony, Liaquatabad - Sindhi Hotel and nearby localities.
The demolition and dislocation work has continued without any slightest of heed being paid to the concerns raised by the most direct of stakeholders—the area residents and workers.
A mock relief effort is being created in the name of Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project which is rendered controversial on scores of accounts. Discrepancy in the number of affected families; grey notifications based on partial lists; paltry compensations across losses of life-long assets of people; extreme disparities between quality of life offered and what people enjoyed before; slow completion of primary facilities and above all brazen destruction of the livelihoods of people in an age of acute unemployment crises are only a few outcomes of this dubious initiative.
Reports of fact-finding missions comprising reputed professionals from Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) have also fallen on deaf ears. Like every initiative of public importance, Lyari Expressway (LEW) has several lessons to offer to the development community in this country.
One of the main stated objectives of the project was to create a viable relief in the movement of vehicles, especially goods carriers, from the congested inner city areas to the outskirts of the city. Neither conceptually nor technically the project execution team has been able to convince the general citizens and professional groups about the relevance of LEW to address this objective.
This however proves one fact that informed decision-making is a remote reality to be reckoned with. Since the project was conceived to be built to satisfy the interest of few outside actors, there was no hindrance in any stage of approval and corresponding execution. The project design was not even sent for an independent technical vetting which is a normal course of action in such exercises. The transporters have also not expressed any support or satisfaction on the project. This situation makes it obvious that participatory decision-making is a non-entity in our context of development practice. Dynamics of the project confirm the fact that the state apparatus is not capable to provide welfare support to low income communities. The entire damage, in terms of loss of residences and livelihoods, has been incurred to the low income groups. This cross section of the society which is already under privileged, faces majority of hardships in daily life. Whenever a so-called development project is announced, it sends cold waves down their spines! Whether it shall cause direct eviction and demolition of their abodes or shunning their livelihoods at the end, it remains an agonizing experience.
Attempts to convince the decision-makers usually prove worthless in a scenario when the most obvious of logic is played down. Residents in the case of LEW were mostly living in the area since several decades. It took several decades for them to obtain some of the common place utilities of life. It is stark clear that after these folks are dislocated from their homes, the process of rehabilitation shall not be commensurate with the life style evolved after ages of nascent labour.
If at all the LEW shall be completed, its main beneficiaries shall be very few. They may include contractors and subcontractors, who acquired this most lucrative contract; builders and developers who may get the prized parcels of land that are being procured along the axis of the expressway and large scale investors who may construct storage and warehousing facilities. It is not clear whether transporters shall benefit because LEW shall soon become clogged due to its congesting environs.
However, the list of affected persons is already exceptionally long and the numerical strength increasing. Over 150,000 residents shall eventually lose their residence, locational advantage and possibly present livelihood.About 18,000 children shall lose their enrolment in the present schools where they are studying. Whether they are able to obtain enrolment at their new location is yet to be seen. Even if that happens, it shall mean extra cost.About 3600 shops and commercial unit’s shall be demolished. Consequently more than 30,000 people will be rendered jobless. In addition, whenever built and used, the poor shall not benefit from the expressway as they neither own cars nor private vehicles which shall ply on it. It clearly proves the fact that such projects aim at benefiting the elite and powerful at the cost of poor and down-trodden.
The project has subscribed compensation package which is entirely non-scientific in nature. The City Government is doling out Rs50,000 and a plot of 80 sq. yds per household in a far-flung settlement to a few selected families. This exercise disregards the fact that almost all the families earmarked for eviction shall bear a grave locational disadvantage. Apart from disrupting the normal life, no detailed valuation was done for the assets lost by the poor residents in the exercise.
Cost of the land, construction, furniture and fixtures, utility connections, displacement and documentation is entirely missed out in the present over simplification. Thus there seems to be no correspondence between the losses and its compensation. This aspect is in total contravention to the donor procedures which have stringent criteria for re-settlement impact assessment and its remedial measures. As stated by the government counsel in a recent court hearing, there will be a loan component which shall be soon applied for. It is apparent that once the donors get involved, they are likely to raise objections which may send the project to doldrums!
Most development projects, including the LEW, are driven by mighty rent seekers than the need itself. The chronology of this project is an interesting citation. Conceived as an option for minimizing traffic congestion in the inner-city during 1989 by a citizens group, it was soon adopted by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC, now defunct) as one of its cherished mega projects for the city.
During the following decade it was pursued with renewed vigour by the city and often provincial governments. In 1996, another desperate attempt was made to launch the project through the initiative of the then Administrator, KMC. Due to the undecided attitude of federal government, reservations cited by the communities and technical objections raised by concerned professionals, the project could not take off. However with the advent of a military government and a contractor group that showed keen interest in it, the project moved ahead at a swift pace.
From ground breaking to the release of funds, apparently it has been a smooth sailing. The project moved on at an amazingly high speed. The contractor, who would obviously be reaping more than a fortune was well connected enough to steer the project with the virtual authority of an executive agency. All the stages of the projects were activated swiftly, including design modifications. Needless to say that when collusion of interest of the contractors and client takes place, no hurdle can stop the progress.
The LEW project has generated various controversies, mostly owing to the non-transparency of its operations. To this day, the actual design and working details of the project are not made public. Similarly the officially notified details of demolition of various settlements are only released at the time of demolition itself. Embezzlement and malpractices have also been found in the project by none other than the Director General, Vigilance of National Highway Authority (NHA) itself, as reported in sections of the press on 29 July 2003.
The LEW is estimated to cost Rs5.081 billion including Rs2.273 billion allocated for reinforced earth. The unit cost now comes to Rs308 million which is exorbitantly high. The purpose of reinforced earth filling, which is as high as 5 to 11 meters at certain ends, sounds unrealistic. It is done only to prevent from high floods. Although the detailed cross sections of the design are yet to be released, the heights seem even higher than the highest flood point ever reached in the river. It however appears to raise the contractors bill to a sizable extent. Because the contractor has his roots in the grounds of the ruling junta, therefore he might get away with it.
It is also interesting to note that the donors have kept a meaningful silence on this whole episode. Previous year when the name of a regional finance institution was cited by the government’s counsel, the resident representative of the said institution sheepishly denied involvement in the project but refused to throw any further light on the matter. However, the silence on matters of violation of project execution phases is deplorable.
At one end the donors claim to act as the partners in sustainable development especially with respect to low income groups while on the other they do not even consider the repeated requests of the affected stakeholders who report the violation of some of the fundamental guidelines in project execution.
It can be safely concluded that more such happenings shall remain in the offing till this quasi military government remains at the helm of affairs. Since it does not feel accountable to people, but to its own head quarters and outside peers, plight of the down trodden shall increase. It also confirms the fact that in the wake of the forthcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, the poor will have virtually no tangible city space to claim.
They shall be ruthlessly pushed aside in cases where their very existence may come in the way of any large scale development exercise. The only way for the poor is to organize themselves, obtain first hand information about developmental affairs, evolve options with the assistance of public spirited professionals and lobby for their rights.