DEVELOPMENT-PAKISTAN: Expressway to Nowhere for Displaced People

By Zofeen Ebrahim Reprint | | Print |

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Jun 18 2006 (IPS) - Munira has skipped going to work because she is waiting in a queue for the municipal tanker to bring water to the residents of Taiser Town, a vast new settlement of 95,000 people, many of them displaced when their homes were demolished to make way for the Lyari Expressway in Pakistan’s commercial capital.

Slated for completion in mid-2007, the expressway across the Lyari river, is being touted as a motorists’ dream. Signal free, traffic speeds on it could touch 180 kmph. But life has slowed down for the tens of thousands of people it displaced.

As the tanker fails to turn up at the appointed time, tempers rise. Very soon there will be heated exchanges that may well break into fisticuffs. Tensions over water are routine and the authorities are yet to make good on a promise to provide piped water.

“If only we could know when the water tanker would come. So much precious time would not be wasted in waiting,” says 55-year-old Munira, who has to take time off from work as a domestic help every few days and bear the wrath of her employer, just to get water.

Taiser Town, 30 km from the centre of Karachi, was earmarked as a second resettlement site for people uprooted by the controversial 16.5 km corridor conceived in 1989 to relieve traffic congestion in inner city areas. Planned to shelter 30-35,000 people, today it is home to three times that number.

“I’ve been here almost a year and the problems just keep multiplying,” confides Munira who was given just one week to move from her home in Golimar, Shahjehanabad where she had been living for more than five decades. As compensation she received Rs 50,000 (roughly 835 US dollars) and a 74 sq metre plot in Taiser Town. But the paperwork was completed only after she had made numerous rounds of government offices, and bribed officials.

Since 2002, the 8.7 million dollar project – which will slice Karachi in two – has resulted in the demolition of 11,397 homes (some doubling as shops and unlicenced factories) and 3,100 commercial units.

The dead and buried were luckier. In March, the authorities had to back down from a plan to relocate over 1,500 graves in the 19th century Munno Goth graveyard in Issa Nagri.

The project was to be completed in 30 months, but only 40 percent of the work has been completed so far, according to the Urban Resource Centre (URC), a non-governmental organisation that has been studying evictions in Karachi since 1992.

URC director, Mohammad Younus, believes only the ‘katchi abadis’ (impermanent settlements) are demolished in the name of development. “Isn’t it ironical that it’s always the poor who are displaced and termed encroachers and land grabbers” by the government?” he asks.

According to him, the katchi abadis have sprouted up on government land because of the “the failure of the government to provide housing for the poor.” Consequently, the poor have no option but to buy land from ‘dalals’ (middle men) who operate with the knowledge of government officials, the police and politicians who in turn “share the profits and look the other way when demolitions take place.”

The housing crisis in Pakistan’s big cities is serious. Roughly half of Karachi’s estimated 12-14 million people live in unregulated areas. Despite the constant threat of demolitions, the URC estimates that nearly 25,000 new homes are added to the various katchi abadis across the city every year. Roughly 6,000 homes in 20 katchi abadis spread over 450 acres of land are expected to be removed this year, according to various news reports.

“Since January, over 3,490 houses have been demolished. While 23,124 people were rendered homeless, people’s investment of over Rs one billion (175 million dollars) on construction has been lost. This excludes the cost of land, infrastructure and services that people obtained over a period,” added Younus.

According to the government’s Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority (SKAA), 72 percent of Karachi’s 539 informal settlements are “notified”. This means that the process of provision of land titles has been approved and the settlement cannot be evicted.

However, ownership rights remain only on paper. Demolitions for the expressway across the Lyari river were conducted without technical vetting or an independent evaluation of the project. Neither were those affected either consulted or given a chance to air their grievances at public hearings. Instead they were relocated in Hawkesbay, 15 km away from the city centre to become the first housing colony for the oustees.

Munira’s neighbour Nasreen who worked as a beautician has been at home since she relocated to Taiser Town. “There is no extra money or time to be spent on looking good or doing fashion when people are finding it hard to make ends meet,” she says laughingly when asked why she does not open her own business.

“Our studies show that 30 percent of skilled labour lose their jobs permanently, and 50 percent for between six months and one year,” URC’s Younus says. As a result, many families have taken the compensation offered by the authorities, but continue to stay on in rented homes around their old localities so they can continue with their jobs and the children can continue going to their schools.

Nasreen’s husband commutes to work from Taiser Town, spending extra money that they can ill afford. “With the amount (Rs 30 rupees or little under one dollar) spent on his transport every day, I was able to buy vegetables for the family,” she says. From Golimar, he only had to walk to work.

“The thing that worries me most is what will happen if my children were to get sick. This place is so far away from the city. Even the doctors here cannot be trusted, I’m not even sure they are qualified,” she adds anxiously.

In Taiser Town there are no decent schools either. There are a total of nine schools: seven run by an NGO -The Citizens Foundation, and two government-aided. Two others are under construction, but it would require many more to meet the needs of a burgeoning population.

“Our children are not getting quality education,” complains Rani. Children have dropped out because schooling has become unaffordable for their parents – a pattern that has repeated itself each time evictions have taken place, the URC has found in study after study.

URC’s findings show that while over 64 percent of boys terminated their studies and started at jobs to assist their families, no girl ever rejoins schools in the resettlement sites.

Meanwhile, Taiser Town’s Bait-ul-Maal (charitable school run with money that is used only for ‘deserving Muslims’) may be on the verge of closure. “While this is not official, insiders have told us that it is likely to shut down because there are not enough Muslim children here,” reveals a resident who does not want to be named. Ironically, some 300 Christian children, who live in an adjoining neighbourhood, are not eligible. “You will find them just wandering about, instead of in school,” the resident adds.

Likewise, there is only one clinic-cum-dispensary for the township – run by a charity, Gospel Help, on land given by the government. There are no ambulance services; the only vehicle is busy with picking and dropping the two general practitioners and three part-time consultants who would otherwise refuse to travel from Karachi.

“We come across a minimum of 10-12 pregnant women every month in need of emergency obstetrics. Three to four die as they are unable to reach to the hospital in time,” says Majid Ahmed, the president of the welfare trust that runs the clinic, adding that they were not sure how long the clinic could be kept running. According to the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2005, maternal mortality is a high 500 for every 100,000 live births in Pakistan.

Lazar Gill in Taiser Town says he has put on hold plans to find grooms for two daughters. “I’ve been here a year, but even now my home is incomplete. The money given by the government has long finished. We have built only one room and the boundary wall. There’s no question of making marriage plans now,” he says.