Operation to clean up Gujjar nullah restarts

Karachi

With taking highly cautious measures, a “grand operation” has been restarted at the Gujjar nullah, aiming to remove the encroachments, said Deputy Commissioner Central Capt (R) Farid Ud Din Mustafa while talking to The News at Gujjar nulllah on Saturday.

The operation was continued at the location till around 5:30pm.

Capt Farid said that efforts were being made to clean up the encroachments during the operation, but the officials were facing a lot of resistance as encroachers had made “women shield” to stop the operation.

The DC central, who was at the command during the operation, said that a 400-meter-long area had been so far cleaned as efforts were being made to widen the width of the nullah and ensure the flow into it.

He said the administration did not want to take any risk, keeping in view a recent tragic incident in which a woman had lost her life due to collapse of a house during a campaign to clean up Gujjar Nullah in FB Area.

Capt Farid said after making great efforts, they had been able to clear the 400-meter-area but a lot of encroachments were yet to be removed.

He said that three or four kettle pens were also removed as their owners had been given enough time for moving out their animals.

According to provincial local government minister Jam Khan Shoro, the Sindh chief minister, who has gone to Dubai, had advised to carry out the operation as the report about the operation was supposed to be delivered to Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhuto,.

The Gujjar Nullah is 13.5 kilometers and its width after the encroachment is now 30 feet, while in the past it was 160 feet wide.

The Sindh government has chalked out a plan to build roads at either sides of the nullah after the encroachments will be removed completely. 

The encroachment removal plan was delayed several times during the past nine years due to political reasons and resistance from land grabbers at the Gujar nullah. 

Senior director municipal services Masood Alam, while talking to the News at the Gujjar Nullah, said that the operation needed time and cooperation from the administration.

Earlier on July 2, Shoro told The News that the Pakistan People’s Party’s Sindh government, on party chief Bilawal Bhutto’s directives, had started working on a scheme to relocate 30,000 families living on encroached land along the banks of Gujjar Nullah in Karachi.

“We will provide alternate land to these people similar to how the people affected by the Lyari Expressway project were resettled,” provincial local government minister Jam Khan Shoro told The News.

He added that Bilawal had directed the authorities concerned to chalk out a resettlement plan for these families.

The minister said the government wanted to clear the passage for sewage water by removing the encroachments from the drain. “Around 29 major nullahs have been encroached upon for a long time and some of the people living there also have lease papers.”

Shoro said the PPP chairman wanted to provide alternate land to the people living on the encroached land instead of leaving them homeless and also avoid litigation if the residents move the court.

“We want to widen Gujjar Nullah and that is only possible when the houses built on its banks are removed,” he added.

The minister said the government would start working on the scheme after Eid-ul-Fitr.

“The cleaning and de-silting of five nullahs has been started.”  He said if the encroachments on major storm-water and smaller drains were not removed, there would be serious problems in Karachi during monsoon rains.

Shoro said Karachi Metropolitan Corporation officers, through contractors, were embezzling the funds released for cleaning the city’s drains.

He added that the government had allocated Rs1 billion for the 14.5-km road that would be constructed on both sides of Gujjar Nullah and also approved further Rs100 million for the project but the KMC was yet to start working on it.

KMC director technical services Niaz Soomro told The News that the PC-I for the project had been approved and to start working in it, some other drains had also been included in the scheme using the Rs150 billion grant announced by Bilawal for Karachi.