KARACHI, Feb 27: Speakers at a demonstration, held here on Friday to condemn the proposed closure and commercialization of a scouts' hostel, have urged the government to intervene and save the internationally-renowned institute.
The demonstration was organized by the Joint Action Committee for the Survival of Amin House International Scouts Hostel. The hostel is located in Sultanabad at Maulvi Tameezuddin Khan Road near the Press Club.
Speakers, including JAC leaders Javed Khan and Mansoor Ali Memon, said the hostel was constructed through donations, adding a major share had been donated by a philanthropist, Chaudhry Amin, after whom the hostel was named, on an amenity plot given by the Sindh government.
They said that the facility was established for scouts visiting from other parts of the country and abroad, adding a large number of scouts, including foreigners, had been availing the facility for nearly half a century.
They accused the Pakistan Boy Scouts Association of closing down the hostel and renting its building to commercial organizations, adding another scouts hostel had already been closed down in Lahore and its building had been rented out some time ago.
The said that the hostel had 20 rooms and two large halls, adding accommodation was provided on subsidized rates. They said the hostel's management had asked its inmates to vacate its premises within the next few days.
Some of the demonstrators told this correspondent they had been living in the hostel for over a couple of years. A student, Shahid Shafiq, had been living there for over a couple of years, a lecturer, M.A. Memon, had lived there for over a year, a student, Aqeel Ahmad, had been staying there for over a year while a PNSC employee, Javed Alam, had been living there for nearly seven months.
Demonstrators, who were chanting slogans, carried banners in support of their demands. Secretary of the Sindh Boy Scouts Wali Mohammad Siyal, who oversees the hostel affairs, told this correspondent that the government had given the amenity land to the Pakistan Boy Scouts Association for the construction of its headquarters and a hostel in 1959.
He said that he had been directed by the organization's head office in Islamabad, to get the hostel vacated within the next couple of weeks, adding occupants of the hostel had been informed in this regard.
He said that he did not know as to how the organziation head offices would utilize the hostel after getting it vacated. He, however, said the organization had advertised and offered the hostel building for rent.
Under existing rules, he said, a person could rent a room for a period not exceeding a month but he could get an unspecified number of month-long extensions subject to availability of accommodation.
He said that the hostel charged Rs1,800 for a single- occupancy room and Rs2,100 for a double-occupancy room. The hostel, he said, needed urgent repairs and renovation, adding it was not incurring financial losses as it earned between Rs30,000 and Rs35,000 a month and its expenditure amounted to around Rs25,000 a month on salaries and utilities.
He said that many of the rooms were occupied by scouts, who had been living there for many months, some of them even for over a year as they were either studying or employed here.