On a cold December day (23-12-'08) fifty semi-pukka houses were demolished in Sector II-I/2 of Orangi Town by the town administration. Men, women and children watched helplessly as the bulldozers flattened their homes.
The town administration claimed the 50 families were encroachers on land already allotted for residential purposes. The evicted families claimed they had been living here for two decades . It was a sad scene but it has been replayed so many times in Orangi, Qasba and Baldia, and to some extent in Surjani Town that it is hard to feel sorry or play the blame game. The housing problem in Karachi needs to be seen in the cold light of reason rather than the coloured light of emotion.
Encroachment is a chronic problem in Karachi. According to official estimates nearly 50 percent of the population or about six million people are homeless. They live in slums, kutchi abadis and squatter settlements. But it is not only the homeless who encroach on any empty plot they may find. The land mafia is as guilty of the practice and so are government functionaries. From the posh localities to the poor ones encroachment is a menace.
But when it comes to eviction, it is only the poor homeless who suffer. The poor have no sense of security because they may stay at a place for one day or ten years but one fine day they are told to leave, the bulldozers arrive on the scene and officialdom supervises the demolition. What happens to the people who are evicted? They find another place to set up their makeshift homes.
All megacities of the world have housing problems. A century ago only one in ten people lived in large cities like Karachi. Today 34 percent of a country's population continues to move towards the city. Urbanisation has become the hallmark of the 21st century.
While all megacities have housing problems it is believed that Karachi's position is unique. It is unable to find a viable solution because unfortunately, the lands for housing in Karachi are in triple control of federal, provincial and local governments. This includes eight cantonment boards and a number of co-operative housing societies. These agencies have their own land utilisation schemes, regulations and bye-laws for housing and are controlled either by the federal ministries or provincial government. This dichotomy of control does not enable the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) to prepare a sustainable masterplan for housing.
Of course, both federal and provincial government have attempted to solve the problem of settlement of the influx of people from upcountry which goes on unabated. One scheme was the regularisation of' kutchi abadis. But even this is not a solution. There are about 550 kutchi abadis, out of which only about 200 have been regularised.
Bhutto's "roti, kapra aur makan" for everybody was a pipe dream. The poor however live in hope to see it materialise even today. And. the PPP government is determined to keep alive this dream even if it is a failure. Today roti that cost 2.50 before the PPP government was established costs Rs six. Prices are high and few can afford to purchase anything better than second-hand clothes.
As for housing, in April last year Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah directed the housing and town planning department to prepare a low-cost housing scheme. Right months have gone by and Lord knows how many more will pass before even a scheme on paper emerges.
With all the above mentioned agencies having a finger in the pie no uniform policy can be implemented. For example a great many poor live in shanties and squat under bridges in parts of the city under control of one or the other cantonment board. Where are they to be housed? Will a cantonment give land to the poor? On the contrary.
They have dreams of making Karachi a city like Dubai. "This is the age of projects," said one cantonment official. So beachfront projects for residence and recreation has resulted in the demolition of some 138 villages and consequently, some 50,000 poor have been evicted.
Plans for low-cost housing are also based on some other country's idea of the same. There was a scheme for high-rise apartments for poor. The idea was that on very small plots more families could be housed in vertical dwellings.
The proposal was to have eight-storey high-rise buildings. Just imagine the future of these structures. They will have to have lifts which will not work of course. They would have to have good plumbing which even commercial high-rise do not have in Karachi. This will mean that the buildings will become slums in no time at all.
My rickshawala who was discussing politics said the PPP promise a "makan" but that is not enough. They should also promise a "dukan" with it so that people can set up some commercial enterprise to earn a livelihood, such as a auto garage, a tailoring shop or a ration shop, he said. It is a wise suggestion because without a means of livelihood a place to live in does not bring happiness.
A place to live in is not just a shelter. A permanent place means stability in the city, and organised and civilised way of life. Today the hotbed of terrorism and all sorts of crime are the unregistered settlements of the poor. Health and education can be planned and yield positive results. In a illegal settlement there can be no hope of proper water supply, sanitation or schools.
This continuous displacement of the poor must stop if this city is to become a properly working modern city. Karachi is lucky to have plenty of land all around in the inner city as well as on the outskirts. But to achieve viable urban uplift the city needs a centralised planning authority. As long as there are twenty different agencies there will always be twenty different problems unnecessarily burdening the socio-economic prospects of Karachi.
There are millions of people without a permanent address. Where, for instance, would you go in search of a person who used to live in Orangi Town Sector II-I/2 from where he was evicted on December 23rd? There are hundreds of people whose livelihood and home is their pushcart. In the day they sell from it, at night they sleep on it.
There are hundreds whose home is a bench or a parapet or a low boundary wall. For many a tree is their only shelter. A person without a permanent address is invisible. Hence the high crime in the city. A criminal does not have to run away, he just moves to another hut in another squatter's settlement.
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