Creating awareness against land encroachment: Shehri-CBE and NED organise seminar

Shehri-CBE and NED University of Engineering and Technology (NEDUE&T) organised a seminar on "encroachment of land" at NEDUE&T City Campus on Tuesday. The purpose of the seminar was to highlight land management and disposal scenarios in 'goths' (rural land) of Karachi, which are increasingly threatened by forcible occupation and encroachment of land.
On the occasion, speakers threw light on increasing incidents of land encroachment by powerful groups and land mafia. They were of the view that such issues complicate efforts at planned urban developments and put a stress on the urban services to damage their aesthetics.
"In Karachi, there are multiple faces to this debilitating phenomenon. Institutional corruption and loopholes in policy and planning are some of the contributing reasons for this ever escalating crisis," they added. A speaker on the occasion, Parveen Rehman, delivered a speech on "the land management scenario in goths of Karachi."
She said, the rapid convergence of goths into public housing schemes is a matter of grave concern. She said that unplanned extension of population results in convergence of goth into housing units. Dr Syed Raza Ali Gardezi, Chairman Shehri-CBE, presented two case studies while addressing the participants of the topic "cases of land encroachment in Urban Karachi." He discussed about an encroachment made by a powerful mafia on Hawks Bay beach.
The speakers said that open space, sidewalks and pavements meant for public and pedestrian usage were encroached by cars parking and extension of road side shops. They also said that low density land use is converted - sans any planning - into high density land use, residential land use is converted into commercial land use and goths turned into public housing schemes. They stressed a need to assess the scale and impact of the crisis and develop strategies to plug gaps in policy, its implementation and regulation of urban development in the city.