Sindh officials committed multiple violations while 'gifting' 20,000 acres of land to DHA for another housing project.
Ibrahim Kachelo’s run-in with the most powerful development authority in Pakistan happened in early October.
“I
was returning from a check-up when I saw a group of people, accompanied
by armed guards, putting up concrete DHA markers on and around my
land,” says the farmer, his weather-beaten face flushed with
indignation.
“I told them to leave, that I have a lease
for it but they wouldn’t listen.” Furious, Mr Kachelo knocked down the
markers in the DHA officials’ presence, the guards drew their guns and a
brawl ensued.
The men retreated, but Mr Kachelo fears that was not the last he has seen of them.
His
reaction stemmed not only from anger, but fear — fear that he will be
driven from the land that has been in his family for generations. After
all, he has seen it happen to others not too far from where his orchard
is located along the northbound track of Superhighway in Malir, the
largest of Karachi’s six districts.
On the opposite
side, along the highway’s southbound track, the DHA City Karachi (DCK)
housing project is under construction on 11,640 acres in deh Abdar and
deh Khadeji (a deh is the smallest revenue unit for land in Sindh,
similar to ‘mauza’ in the rest of the country).
Metalled
roads and farmhouses have erased the pastureland where livestock
belonging to the villagers used to graze, and the villages themselves
have either been walled off or are in the process of being so as
construction of the housing community proceeds.
(See box
below) That they were able to retrieve some of their land from DHA is
only because they filed a petition in the Sindh High Court and it ruled
in their favour.
These 11,640 acres, which comprise Sectors 1 - 16 of the
housing project, were allotted to DHA in 2005 at a concessional rate of
Rs100,000 per acre by the Board of Revenue, Sindh.
(BoR
is the provincial government department that is the original custodian
of all land in the province, and the controlling authority for
collection of land revenue, maintaining land records, etc.)
The
‘visit’ by the officials of the Defence Housing Authority, Karachi to
Mr Kachelo’s land was in connection with the expansion of DCK along the
highway’s northbound track, specifically over 8,000 acres in dehs
Kathore and Boil.
Mr Kachelo’s land in deh Boil has been
in his family since generations; he himself has been cultivating it for
40 years. A rocky outcrop affords a bird’s eye view of the huge
orchard, dense with guava trees.
“Over the years, I’ve spent millions of rupees on it, including the expense of a tube well. This is my life’s work,” he says.
There
are many others like him in the surrounding area, where lush pumpkin
fields are interspersed with rows upon rows of trellises abounding in
bitter gourd ivy. Orchards of guava, chiku and shareefa dot the
landscape.
“The rains were plentiful this year so the
wells have been renewed and the check dam has filled up,” says Waheed
Sikander Chhutto, another one of the hundreds of farmers who toil the
land in this area. “We shouldn’t have any problem cultivating for the
next two years.”
Their immediate concern is DCK’s planned
expansion. Taj bibi, picking ripened pumpkins along with other women,
frets about how the 50 or so members of the extended family that live on
the proceeds of their farm will survive if they are forced to leave.
A
group of little girls — the youngest of whom is named Benazir — giggle
shyly as they pose for pictures, blissfully unaware of the cares that
have robbed the adults of their sleep.
(The estimated total population of deh Kathore is 15,000 and
that of deh Boil 1,200, all of whom are dependent on the local
agricultural economy.)
In 2012, BoR Sindh cancelled all
30-year agricultural leases on the 8,000 acres in dehs Kathore and Boil
and allotted the land to DHA, a development the villagers only became
aware of a year later.
However, aside from a brief foray
by DHA personnel into deh Boil around that time — which ended abruptly
when the locals sent them packing — the villagers had no reason to
believe that their lives were about to be upended.
In
early 2017, officials from DCK across the highway began to pay regular
visits, pressing them to give up their land, carrying out surveys of the
area and marking the boundaries of the housing project.
“They
told us, ‘Look, this is a fauji idara [army institution], if it wants
to enter this place you can’t stop it’,” said one of the villagers. “But
how can we leave? This is not about money. Our zameen is like our
mother, it sustains us.”
Illegal cancellation of farming leases
Although the government is entitled to cancel 30-year
agricultural leases of the kind possessed by these farmers, it is not an
absolute right; it is a qualified one.
According to
Section 24 of the Colonisation of Government Lands Act 1912, if the land
authority believes that a tenant has committed a breach of the
conditions of his tenancy, he must be given the opportunity to defend
himself.
Also, according to this law, no penalty can be
imposed on the tenant nor his lease cancelled unless he is given a
written notice to rectify the breach within a reasonable time, which
should be no less than one month.
Such protection of an individual’s right to property is in consonance with principles of universal common law.
(Moreover,
the Land Acquisition Act 1984 stipulates that the government can
acquire land on payment of compensation when such land is required for a
“public purpose”. Handing it over to a private developer does not fall
under this definition.)
Officers at DHA, Karachi contend that as it is the Sindh government that has allotted them the land for DCK, it absolves them of responsibility for the farmers’ plight
Farmers in dehs Kathore and Boil were renewing their leases
regularly, paying their dues and cultivating crops as per the conditions
of their lease.
A number of them have filed joint
petitions against the cancellation of their leases, naming officials in
the Sindh government and DHA, Karachi as respondents.
It is no less than a David and Goliath struggle playing out in the backyard of Pakistan’s largest city.
Officers
at DHA, Karachi contend that as it is the Sindh government that has
allotted them the land for DCK, it absolves them of responsibility for
the farmers’ plight.
“They have given it to us according
to their due process, and they dealt with the leases on it, and we
checked it according to our procedures,” said Administrator DHA, Karachi
Brigadier Shahid Hassan Ali in an interview with Dawn.
“Actually,
DHA is a vulnerable hostage because we follow the law.” He added that
their system of checks and balances was far superior to that of the
civilians. “If the government has 10 procedures, we have 17.”
It
was on May 6, 2011, when a letter — DHA/TP&BC/ 108/ DCK — from then
DHA Administrator Brigadier Aamer Raza Qureshi to the then Sindh chief
minister Qaim Ali Shah set in motion events that were to have
far-reaching repercussions on the lives of the people in these parts of
Malir.
The letter, which is in Dawn’s possession, thanks
the Sindh government for allotting the first chunk of 11,640 acres at a
concessional rate.
It goes on to state that, “However,
the land that DHA had earlier acquired from the Govt of Sindh is
insufficient to meet this demand.
The requirement of
additional land has become imperative in view of the increasing number
of casualties of the armed forces personnel in the War against Terror.
The
Pak Army has a pressing need to rehabilitate the families of the
martyrs and DHA Karachi has no option but to request you to meet this
obligation towards those who have laid [down] their lives for the
motherland.”
It then goes on to request the provincial
government to lease an additional 5,000 to 7,000 acres on the same terms
and conditions and at the same concessional rate of Rs100,000 per acre
as the earlier allotment.
According to the Sindh
Disposal of Urban Land Ordinance, 2002, “The disposal of land by
Government to an Authority…shall be at the market price [as assessed by
the deputy commissioner] through an agreement.”
(Land
for low-cost housing schemes, however, is an exception: this may be
allotted at concessional rates, which must nevertheless be at least 25pc
of market value.)
As per market rates, land on both sides of the Superhighway was worth at least Rs10 million per acre in 2011.
The
letter by the DHA administrator to the Sindh chief minister proceeds to
helpfully add: “We would like to inform you that a parcel of
approximately 10,000 acres of land is available in Deh Boil adjacent to
the land already allotted.”
By July 9, 2011, as noted in a
document signed by the City District Government of Karachi’s district
officer (revenue), the tapedar (land record officer) of the area
concerned had reported that a 7,000-acre chunk of land in deh Boil was
available for allotment to DHA.
According to this
document, the tapedar reported that 30-year leases had been given to 179
locals on 1,481 acres of this area for the purposes of poultry farming
and wahi chahi (land partly irrigated from a well) and barani
cultivation.
Only a “few” people, it said, “have developed/utilised the
land for the purpose…Hence, except few matured cases (sic) the remaining
grants are liable for cancellation proceedings as per conditions of
grant”.
The tapedar concerned, as per the document, also
specified two chunks of land adding up to 1,000 acres in deh Kathore as
being available for allotment to DHA. “Some 30 years undeveloped grants
are also falling in the above area”, he claimed.
In a
letter dated Jan 7, 2012, the Sindh government noted that 8,000 acres
had been allotted on payment by DHA of Rs800 million at Rs100,000 per
acre and that all 30-year leases on that land had been cancelled.
An unequal contest
To gauge the jaw-dropping ‘rebate’ given by the Sindh government to a profit-making venture, consider the following.
Even
according to the official rates, the 11,640 acres in dehs Abdar and
Khadeji — which comprise the initial phase of DCK — are worth an average
of Rs1.2m per acre. That adds up to Rs14 billion.
In the
next phase, which involves dehs Boil and Kathore, the 7,000 acres in
Boil are worth a total of 7.7bn while the 1,000 acres in Kathore add up
to Rs4bn.
Based on the official rates (a fraction of
actual market value), the price of the entire 19,640 acres is Rs25.7bn.
The Sindh government sold it to DHA, Karachi for only Rs1.96bn. If the
market rate is applied, the land is worth an eye-watering Rs196bn.
In the eyes of the villagers, the PPP government’s role in depriving them of their land is a betrayal of the Bhutto legacy by the party’s current leadership
Moreover, the allotment of the 7,000 acres in Boil, plus
1,000 acres in Kathore — a thousand acres in excess of what was demanded
by DHA — offers evidence, yet again, of how the bosses of the Sindh
government sacrifice the rights of the people to profit from favours to
powerful segments of society.
(Ironically enough, this
area has long been a PPP vote block. In the eyes of the villagers, the
PPP government’s role in depriving them of their land is a betrayal of
the Bhutto legacy by the party’s current leadership. “If Benazir had
been alive today, this would never have happened,” said Ajmal Jokhio,
his voice quavering with emotion, as several other villagers nodded in
agreement.)
The provincial political heavyweights’
alacrity in matters like these is in stark contrast to its sluggish or
non-existent response where the people’s basic needs are concerned.
For
instance, there is no higher secondary school for girls within
reasonable distance, which discourages parents from educating their
daughters beyond Grade 8.
“We’ve had the school upgraded
till Matric,” says Abdul Qayyum, a teacher at the local secondary
school. “But the government has yet to appoint teachers and sanction
funds for their salaries, etc.”
Their repeated
applications during last several years to the education department and
to the local PPP MPA Sajid Jokhio have fallen on deaf ears.
The
locals’ appeals to authorities about the imminent loss of their land
have been similarly ignored. In a small provisions store in deh Boil,
amidst the shelves of juice boxes, packets of crisps and other assorted
items, local councillor Karim Bakhsh Chutta opened a small, battered
case.
It contained documentation of the residents’ struggle
against DHA Karachi on the one hand and Bahria Town Karachi (BTK) on the
other, two behemoths squeezing them from both sides in a pincer
movement.
There are letters to the Sindh chief minister,
Rangers, police, etc asking for their help in preventing the takeover
of their thriving farmland. All have gone unanswered.
Having
run out of options, residents of Abdul Rehman Chhutto goth in deh Boil
have filed a constitutional petition No. 6504/2017 against the Sindh
government and DHA Karachi.
In it, they denied that
their leased agricultural lands — which add up to 229 acres, aside from
the 18 acres on which stands goth Abdul Rehman which was regularised
under the Gothabad Scheme Act, 1987 — had not, as claimed by the
provincial government, lain undeveloped in violation of the lease terms.
As the matter stands at present, the Sindh government and DHA, Karachi have been issued notices to respond.
District
Malir, measuring 521,000 acres, lies in the north and east of Karachi.
Its 43 dehs comprise the rural outskirts of Karachi. Many of these dehs,
such as Langheji, Kathore and Boil were part of the city’s periphery
that supplies fruit and vegetables to Karachi.
This green belt is all the more precious because of the
unplanned construction that is obliterating green spaces in the city’s
urban areas. When it rains in the Kirthar range, the water rolls down to
the plains of Malir to replenish the aquifers and check dams and bring
seasonal streams to life.
The land here is either
rain-fed (barani) — with agriculture being dependent on the rains — or
it is sustained all year round by groundwater drawn through tube wells.
Notwithstanding its close proximity to a large urban centre, an oppressive feudal system prevails here.
Sardar
Malik Asad Sikander, a PPP MNA from Jamshoro, is the most powerful
feudal in the area, which is colloquially known as Kohistan (comprising
Jamshoro and Hyderabad districts, as well as parts of Karachi’s
districts Malir and West).
Chief of the Burro tribes
including Kachelo, Palari and Gondar sub-tribes, he exerts the kind of
influence that brooks no defiance. “I hope our names are not going to be
printed,” says a local in a white, mirrored Sindhi cap. “These are
sardar log. They will destroy us.”
Mr Sikander regularly
plays host to Arab royalty and assorted members of the Pakistani
establishment and social elite on hunting expeditions in these parts of
Malir district.
The expansion of DCK and nearby BTK is inversely proportional to the diminishing of his power and influence.
Nevertheless,
however well-connected he is, Mr Sikander has to tread carefully given
DHA’s enormous clout and the business connections of Bahria Town CEO
Malik Riaz with VVIPs in Sindh.
At the same time,
everything is negotiable for a price, which in his case is reportedly
scores of ‘files’ to the thousands of plots being carved out in the
housing projects, not to mention other political advantages.
Fuelling speculation
DHA Karachi requested the land for DCK — 11,640 acres first
and 8,000 acres later — for the purpose of rehabilitating the families
of the soldiers martyred in the ‘war on terror’. According to military
sources, an estimated 6,000 personnel have been martyred in the war
against terrorism since 2001.
According to Administrator
DHA Brig Ali, the fallen soldiers are compensated according to their
rank, albeit there can be exceptions to this rule.
Exploitation
of land for commercial reasons results in artificial price increase and
ultimately puts housing out of the reach of the common man
“The plots range between five marlas (100 square yards) to
an acre (4,840 square yards),” he said. That raises the logical
question: why then the requirement for so much land in the name of the
martyred?
“The families could have been given plots in a
city closer to their homes,” says a disgruntled former local government
official.
“Using the fallen for a commercial venture is
unprecedented in the country’s history. It’s a crime committed by the
Musharraf government against the people of Karachi.”
The
provision of housing is universally considered the basic responsibility
of a state towards its citizens. Housing should be planned and
developed for living in, not for speculation.
Exploitation
of land for commercial reasons results in artificial price increase and
ultimately puts housing out of the reach of the common man.
“These
so-called housing schemes are siphoning away every last paisa that
could help develop low to medium housing in Karachi,” claims a former
director KDA.
At 19,640 acres (11,640 plus 8,000 on both
sides of the Superhighway), DCK is not only more than twice the size of
DHA’s first eight phases in the city, which add up to 8,852 acres, it is
also larger than Karachi’s Central District (19,000 acres), as well as
Lahore’s Old City area (16,000 acres).
According to
experts, development of schemes like DCK in the green belts and
protected areas of Karachi by powerful developers violates all
rationales, including rights to property, environmental laws and
principles of urban planning.
“In any city outside South
Asia, they wouldn’t have gotten permission. They would have been told
to finish developing [the existing phases] first,” said urban planner
Arif Hasan.
Even 37 years after the inception of DHA
Karachi, an area in excess of 3,000 acres in DHA phases VIII, &
VII-extension is still lying vacant, for which, incidentally, DHA has
also collected development charges four times.
According
to a former land official: “It is incomprehensible that a developer
whose capacity utilisation has been so poor during four decades has been
allowed to undertake another scheme two and a half times in size”.
“Speculation
is not in our control,” said Brig Ali. “The private investor comes in,
and instead of living on it, sells it on. These are market forces about
which we can do nothing.” He admits however, that it will be decades
before the project is populated.
A transparent approach?
DHA Karachi’s administrator, a qualified civil engineer,
said: “We’re looking at sustainability… We’ve got four or five
operational check dams while another two or three are planned, so
underground water is recharged…we haven’t disturbed any of the natural
nallahs either.”
Planned as a “green and smart” city, the housing project is equipped with a 1.1 megawatt solar project.
In
response to a question about supply of water and other utilities, the
administrator replied that DHA had approached the Sindh government for a
reasonable allocation from K-4.
Locals
allege that Malik Asad Sikander, well known for maintaining links with
both the security establishment and VVIPs in the Sindh government, had
arranged the fraudulent sale and transfer of the land in Jamshoro
district to DHA, Karachi
K-4 is the water supply scheme that the Karachi Water and
Sewerage Board has been pushing for almost 20 years to overcome the
shortage of water, then assessed at 650 million gallons per day, faced
by Karachiites.
In 2003, the Indus River System Authority agreed, though in principle only, to allocate 260 MGD additional water.
The
feasibility study and designing of the project has been done by Osmani
& Company Ltd. Estimated to exceed Rs 25 billion, K-4 was awarded to
the Frontier Works Organisation for construction without the mandatory
requirement of a public tender.
Interestingly, OCL along
with the Greek company Doxiadis Associates are also the lead
designers/consultants for DCK. According to a former MD KWSB, the design
team was told to route K-4 along DCK and through BTK.
Such
routing has created a problem for KWSB as there is no fiscal allocation
for the construction of the requisite connections to supply even the
remaining water to Karachi.
It is also worth pointing
out that unlike all other water flowing through gravity into Karachi
from the Indus, this route involves massive pumping against gravity.
Early
in March this year, a NAB case against revenue officers of District
Jamshoro, Taluka Thano Bula Khan was reported in the press.
ADC-1
Javed Soomro and AC Irshad Kamlani sought bail before arrest in a case
pertaining to the sale/transfer of 731 acres of government land — shown
as private land in the record of rights — to DHA Karachi.
It
seems that someone in BoR, realising there was no qabooli
(inherited/privately owned) land on either side of the Superhighway, and
that a fraudulent transaction had taken place, reported the matter.
As
expected, the NAB investigations in the case came to a grinding halt
soon after they began. While all queries to the official spokesman
remain unanswered, a source in NAB claims, “You have no idea of the kind
of pressure we have to contend with.”
Locals allege
that Malik Asad Sikander, well known for maintaining links with both the
security establishment and VVIPs in the Sindh government, had arranged
the fraudulent sale and transfer of the land in Jamshoro district to
DHA, Karachi for DCK’s Sector 17 in order to circumvent the Supreme
Court ban on allotment and lease of government land to private and
public entities that has been in effect since November 2012.
NAB
documentation of the case (ID no: NABK2015111019865) lists nine persons
under investigation, including three government servants and five
private individuals. The amount involved is listed as “more than Rs500
million”.
An excerpt from the findings recorded in the
case brief reads: “Inquiry established that forgery was committed by the
revenue officers/officials of revenue deptt. The revenue record of
rights through which state land was fraudulently shown as private land.”
The findings also record that “DHA has not responded to a single query despite issuance of call up notice”.
Another
related NAB document notes: “731-28 acres of the land under possession
of DHA Karachi has no legal title for being subject to land fraud and
vests in Board of Revenue, Govt of Sindh.”
The question of jurisdiction
The sensitive issue of jurisdiction in DCK is also far from
clear. All land development must be overseen by a municipal authority,
where its by-laws apply.
Phases I till VIII of DHA
Karachi are contiguous, and fall under the municipal jurisdiction of the
Clifton Cantonment Board (CCB).
However, DCK, sometimes
also called DHA Phase-IX, lies some 40 kilometres beyond the limits of
the CCB as the crow flies, and falls in the municipal jurisdiction of
Malir Development Authority.
The administrator DHA, Karachi, conceded that there is a
“procedural anomaly” in this respect, adding: “We have started the
process with the Sindh government so that DHA, Karachi would provide the
municipal services to DCK.” There were, in his view, several options
that could be considered.
Sources said one of those
options, a strong possibility, is for DCK to be notified as a ‘detached’
part of CCB in order to bring it under its municipal control. However,
the definition of cantonments in Section II of the Cantonment Act 1924
does not provide the necessary cover.
It reads: “The
Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare
any place or places along with boundaries in which any part of the
regular forces or the regular air force of Pakistan is quartered or
which, being in the vicinity of any such place or places, is or are
required for the service of such forces to be a cantonment for the
purposes of this Act…”
A retired city official asks:
“How can land granted in the name of the shuhada of the ‘war on terror’
fall in the definition of a cantonment?”
Moreover, such a
move would violate an apex court judgement. In October 2007, the
Supreme Court, in a human rights case (6844/2006) ordered that “Civilian
areas shall be excluded from the cantonment boards through a
notification by Ministry of Defence.
To identify such
areas, a survey will be conducted by a committee comprising Director,
Military Lands and Cantonments Karachi, EDO Revenue.... The committee
shall submit its report within one month”.
The minutes
of a meeting on Dec 4, 2007 held by the committee constituted on the
orders of the SC noted: “Agenda of the meeting could not be discussed/
decided as at the very outset, the Director Military Lands and
Cantonments pointed out that a review petition is being filed … in the
Supreme Court of Pakistan against its order…and till such time
implementation must be stopped/ halted.”
However, the review petition was “dismissed for non-prosecution”, and the SC’s order has not been complied with.
According
to sources in MDA, DHA Karachi has neither submitted layout plans for
the scheme, nor obtained the mandatory Permission to Build or the NoC to
Sell from the Authority
Although it led nowhere, the work by the committee — which
also included the director, military lands and cantonments Karachi — is
illuminating.
To give but one instance, while the
Clifton Cantonment’s civilian area came to 9,953 acres, its area of
operational (military) use is only 58 acres. In fact, the operational
areas in all of Karachi’s six cantonments add up to 17,516 acres, about
2,000 acres less than all of DCK, of which no part is designated for
military use.
Meanwhile, the civilian areas in the six
cantonments add up to 26,095 acres, some 6,000 acres more than the land
thus far allotted to DCK.
Even earlier, a report by the
National Reconstruction Bureau during Gen Musharraf’s government had
also recommended that non-military use lands in Karachi be excluded from
cantonments and handed over to CDGK. However the recommendation was not
acceded to.
According to sources in MDA, which has a
claim of more than Rs1.35 billion as development charges alone against
DCK’s Sectors 1-16, DHA Karachi has neither submitted layout plans for
the scheme, nor obtained the mandatory Permission to Build or the NoC to
Sell from the Authority.
MDA authorities insist they have sent several letters to DHA Karachi, but that the latter has not responded.
According
to news reports, on Oct 7, 2017, the Sindh government has transferred
an additional 8,500 acres of land to the army in district Jamshoro for
the families of the martyred at the rate of Rs15,000 per acre.
Meanwhile, the DHA City juggernaut continues to roll on in the name of development.
