The Supreme Court has given six months to the Board of Revenue (Sindh) to reclaim 59,903 acres of encroachments in Karachi with 52,130 acres under institutional encroachment. These figures may be mind blowing for a foreigner; however, unfortunately, few Pakistanis would be surprised with many, no doubt, aware of the equally astonishing figures for not only other major cities and towns of the country but also in rural areas. Few, however, are convinced that the recent Supreme Court directive would be implemented given that previous efforts to resolve the issue of encroachments, with or without assistance from multilaterals through technical assistance, have not been successful due to entrenched interests.
Most of the land is owned by provinces which they allocate from time to time for various purposes as required by several institutions; for example, for railways as well as land given to the armed forces for establishing cantonments. However, rising population of our cities particularly in Karachi necessitating the establishment of a mass transit system have been compromised time and again due to the spectre of encroachments. A case in point is the revival of Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project which has yet to commence. In 2008, however, the Qaim Ali Shah government incorporated the Karachi Urban Transport Corporation to execute the project with work scheduled to commence in 2010 with a scheduled completion date in 2014 with the capacity to serve 70,000 passengers every day. A feasibility study for KCR's revival was conducted by Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) in 2006 with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) agreed to fund the project through a soft loan payable in 40 years by City District Government Karachi, Pakistan Railways and Government of Sindh (KUTC). The execution of the project continues to face hurdles in land acquisition which led finally to the withdrawal of the offer to fund the project by JICA.
Another well-known case of encroachments with a major economic cost to the country is that of the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Ltd (PTCL) properties. Successive Pakistani governments have been unable to mutate all the PTCL properties due to large-scale encroachments. Attempts to get the encroachers to vacate the land have all but failed. Encroachments are not only by the politically powerful but katchi abadis serving the needs of an adjacent middle class to rich households have erupted all over the country's cities and towns. Political governments, as a deliberate attempt to gain popularity, periodically regularize katchi abadis.
In addition, the existing patwari system is widely believed to be extremely corrupt. In rural areas encroachments are commonplace as well and on occasion on land close to a river or canal which accounts for displacement of entire communities during the monsoon season in the event of floods.
There is therefore an urgent need for land reforms. Punjab government did toy with the idea of computerizing land records and doing away with the patwari system but there has been little movement on the ground thus far. One can only hope that provincial governments take bold steps to end encroachments once and for all but so far the political will appears to be lacking in all the four provinces with different political parties in charge.