Lyari Expressway
Update
JULY 2 2002
Eviction
Alert
Lyari
Expressway Karachi Pakistan
The
Government bulldozed over 300 housing and commercial units in Lyari
River on 27, 28, 29 June and 1st July 2002. The operation is continuing
today and more demolition are being reported. The area is rounded up by
the arm forces and
bulldozers
are being used to crush houses.
On
January 21, 2002 started bulldozing settlements and other community
establishment and over 1900 small commercial units were bulldozed, an
estimate number of 9500 persons were working in these commercial units.
Many poor families also used these small commercial units as residential
purposes.
On
15March city government has resumed the bulldozing operation in Shershah.
During 15 to 20 March the city government has bulldozed 67 factories and
godowns. An estimated number of 8000 persons (Both men and women) were
working in these factories and godowns.
Later
on government stopped evictions and formed a 9 member committee of
experts to review this project but even before the committee could meet
the government restarted evictions once again. These are the most brutal
bulldozing operation ever seen in the history of Karachi. It is seemed
like an army attacked on a foreign land.
Lyari
Riverbed affectees stage sit-in, leaders arrested
By Moosa Kaleem The News
5/6/02)
KARACHI: A large
number of affectees of the Lyari Expressway staged sit-in at Shershah on
Thursday, to block the bulldozers moving towards their buildings as the
City Government resumed the operation to remove structures impeding the
Lyari Expressway project at Lyari Riverbed.
The City Government anti-encroachments team - led
by Senior Deputy District Officer (Land) Salman Faridi - managed to
remove godowns and a residential unit on Thursday morning. However, the
team had to stop the operation after the protesters gathered at the
site.
Police arrested
some of the protesters, including Chairman Action Committee for Civic
Problems Baseer Naveed, who was present at the site and was supporting
the protesters to get the demolition of their residential units stopped.
"I along
with two other members of the Action Committee, Tariq Aziz and Noor
Khan, are still detained at Shershah Police Station," said Baseer
Naveed while talking to The News through his cell phone at 10.00pm.
He informed that
the city government demolition team had a list of 100 buildings to be
removed during the operation on Thursday. But, he said, they wanted to
demolish those residential units too, which were not even included in
their list, which forced people to protest.
Some of the
protesters were saying that they were not given the alternate plots,
asking to the city government team where should they take their families
if their houses were demolished. Some of them, whose residential units
had been demolished in the earlier phases of the operation, were saying
that City Nazim Naimatullah Khan failed to fulfil the promise of giving
them alternate shelter, leaving them under open sky.
They said the
City Nazim had assured them that the city government would take them
into confidence while amending the route plan, prepared earlier by
National Highway Authority. But, they claimed the operation was
initiated on Thursday without any prior notice.
They said
President Pervez Musharraf had issued instructions that the affectees
should be rehabilitated on alternative plots prior to demolition of
their buildings but alternative plot has not been given to a single
affectee so far.
This scribe called at the
cellular phone of the Senior Deputy District Officer (Land) of the City
Government Salman Faridi to seek his department's version but he
disconnected the line after six beeps, courtesy the Caller Line
Identification (CLI). The News 28/6/02
JUNE 11 2002
Evictions
stopped and no evictions has been reported since March 2002. City
Govt. has formed a body with representation of 3 experts from community
(total members 9) to review this project. Most importantly federal
government is unable to arrange financiers for the project. The news
below show how federal govt wants to responsibilities from its shoulders
to provincial ones.
Centre
asks Sindh to construct Lyari Expressway
KARACHI:
The federal government has asked the Sindh provincial government to take
up the responsibility of construction of the Lyari Expressway if the
latter is not ready to allow the National Highway Authority (NHA) to
collect the toll on the proposed project, sources divulged to The News.
The
sources said that the federal government put forth the suggestion in
view of the refusal of the provincial and city governments to allow the
NHA to collect the toll. In a letter to the Chief Secretary, Sindh, the
Chief Executive's Secretariat said that the according to the NHA Act, in
case of all federal roads constructed by the NHA, the Authority should
have the discretionary power to collect the toll, the sources added.
"The
Communications Division says that the Sindh government was not ready to
allow the NHA to collect the toll and in this case if the Sindh
government's stance was accepted then it would create a precedent for
other provinces.
The
sources said that the Communications Division had suggested that if the
Sindh government did not accept the NHA's contention, then funds for the
Rs 5 billion Lyari Expressway be shifted to the Sindh government and it
should take responsibility for ensuring construction, pay back the
allocated amount, as well as maintenance of the expressway.
The
federal government asked the Sindh government to examine the suggestion
of the Communications Division and communicate its comments to the Chief
Executive's Secretariat, the sources added (By Moosa Kaleem The News
5/6/02)
