KARACHI - The Karachi Development Authority (KDA) claimed to have demolished 544 illegal buildings in one month during ongoing anti-encroachment drive, however, the authority failed to achieve any impressive results as per orders of apex court.
KDA spokesperson Tuesday said that following the directives of Director General KDA, Samiuddin Siddiqui ongoing grand operation against illegal occupants has been carried out by Estate and Enforcement staff.
Estate and Enforcement department of KDA demolished around 544 illegal buildings with heavy machinery including 188 shops, 140 marriage lawn, 114 homes, 58 boundary wall, 16 block spots, 4 warehouses, 12 hotels, farm houses and others in one month.
“Departmental signboards had placed on all the evicted plots and monitoring system also implemented on these plots,” the spokesperson said. He said that, Director General had shown his satisfaction on ongoing operation and directed the Estate and Enforcement department to continue indiscriminate operation with cooperation of law enforcement agencies without any influence.
Spokesperson said that according to instruction of Director General Operation would be continue against illegal occupants.
The Director General of Karachi Development Authority couple of days ago told The Nation that the KDA devising new strategy to evict the KDA’s land and it was impossible to remove encroachments from all illegal occupied land within two months which quoted during the hearing of Supreme Court.
It is pertinent to mentioning here that the during a hearing in Supreme Court it was revealed that around 35,000 amnesty plots of state were illegally occupied by land grabbers while thousand of houses also constructed known as “China-cutting”.
The authority has failed to remove china cutting from the illegal occupied land of KDA due to the massive reaction by the allotees of the houses and Karachi based political party Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan also recorded its protest against the demolition of houses in the ongoing anti-encroachment operation.
Earlier, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) had also decided to participate in the operation for eviction of KMC land, but after the protest by MQM-P, Mayor Karachi has delayed the participation as any action against land grabbers by KMC has yet to be witnessed in last one month.
On the other side, it also witnessed that Sindh Building Control Authority which is the main responsible authority of illegal construction in the city had kept silence over the issue and authority using delay tactics to provide approval plans of buildings which is illegal constructed on KDA’s land.