The Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) is going to be revived. Back in the 80s, KCR was a choice mode of transportation for urban dwellers, but it shut down in 1999 due to poor management and inadequate funds to keep it afloat. Its revival is great news: commuters will have more travel options and they can switch from buses and motorcycles, which together will loosen the noose on the burdened roads across the city and is equally good for the environment. On the other hand, there is the fact that the city administrators will have to clear out 260 acres or nearly 10,000 illegal constructions across the tracks site to make way for the rail.
The KCR cleaning is part of the larger anti-encroachment and land retrieval exercise happening in the city on the orders of the highest court. The railway runs through a number of commercial ventures including the vast furniture market in Gharibabad, Macchar colony, petrol stations and some factories in SITE area. Not to mention, swatches of land across the network is occupied by garbage, kacchi and semi-pacci abaadis. These encroachers will have to be removed. But there are no settlement plans in place for them, which, sure legally the government is not liable to make since it is illegally occupied land, but is it really that simple? (more: “The Odyssey of Naya Karachi”, Nov 26, 2018).
Legally, land is out of the reach of the middle class, let alone the lower income and poor populace. A mortgage market is missing, subsequent low income housing schemes have failed and the speculative trading of real estate makes for exponential increase in property prices. Only a small percentage of the population can afford to buy land, while predominantly, the sector is used for parking money as it gives the most lucrative of returns to investors who treat real estate as a commodity. Meanwhile, land administration, registration and titling problems are well-documented.
Dating back since pre-partition, land mafias often with the help of state functionaries occupy lands illegally only to rent out these illegally obtained properties to commercial and domestic settlers. That’s one way kacchi abaadis are formed. While anti-encroachment drive and retrieving grabbed land is the right move, one has to appreciate the fact that large portions of the population living in these areas informally or setting up their shops have had no other choice. They often do pay some form of rent—many times with the involvement of regulators and law enforcement agents. To put that in perspective, these constitute nearly half of the urban population
Over the years, virtually nothing has been done to regulate and organize the real estate sector, so speculators, developers, special interest groups and lobbies decide the fate of housing in the country rather than market forces. Squatters can be easily removed, that’s not the problem. They will inevitably find another place to squat. The same will happen to vendors, and small shops who will either lose business and slip into abject poverty or find another place to settle down to search for other fortunes.
Freeing of land, in fact, is the easiest step, especially in its current ad-hoc manner and it remains unclear whether the government is committed to correct the inefficiencies in land management, allocation as well as its utilization. And whether it possesses the will to bring land reforms and real estate regulations in order to balance the scales.
On the federal level, the state-launched tracker for 100-days shows the PTI government is nearly ready to launch the framework for its incredibly ambitious Naya Pakistan Housing Program. Here’s hoping there is a route for informal settlers currently being unhoused by the cleaning drives to find legal homes through it.
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