The Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday that 2024 had seen the most number of demolition operations against illegal construction in Karachi and the rest of the province compared to the previous five years.
Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani disclosed this information while responding to queries from concerned lawmakers during the question hour of the session. He told the House that the operation against illegal constructions in the province had been continuing at a fast pace.
He said that recommendations would be sent to the federal government to block the computerised national identity cards and passports of the elements involved in illegal constructions in addition to other punitive steps against them, including imprisonment and fines.
He told the legislature that erring officials who had connived with the elements involved in illegal constructions had also been taken to task but a more stringent law was required to deal with such cases.
Answering a question asked by Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan lawmaker Abdul Basit, the local government minister said action had been taken against illegal constructions in Karachi. He said that action had been taken against 8,171 such illegal buildings from 2018 to 2024. In 2018, he said, 1,150 such operations were conducted while 1,220 operations were carried out in 2019, 976 in 2020, 1,308 in 2021, 1,142 in 2022, 892 in 2023, and 1,784 operations were conducted in 2024.
He informed the concerned legislators that action had been continuing against the illegal constructions in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh on a daily basis. Ghani, however, conceded that the functioning of the Sindh Building Control Authority had been affected due to various problems. He also admitted that the provincial government had failed to completely prevent illegal constructions in the city.
He said there were several causes behind this situation and one major reason was the lack of stern punishment in the relevant laws. Ghani told the House that several officials had been transferred from Karachi to other districts in Sindh because of the menace of illegal constructions in the city. He said more such punitive actions would be taken against the erring officials.
He said he had proposed to impose a fine of up to Rs10 million on the builders involved in illegal constructions. He also admitted that often after the SBCA had taken action against an illegal construction or unauthorised portion of the building, that illegal construction was rebuilt.
The local government minister told the House that he had directed the officials concerned to repeatedly take action against an illegal construction if the unauthorised building was reconstructed after being demolished by the SBCA.
He said that the law, which allowed regularisation of up to 20 per cent of the unathorised portion of a building, would be amended so that no such provision in the law for regularising illegal construction existed.
Ghani appealed to the concerned lawmakers to directly inform him about the instances of illegal constructions. Answering another query, he said the Sindh government had been trying its best to purchase fire tenders for every district of the province. He said special fire tenders would be purchased for the high-rise buildings in Karachi.
K-IV project
Ghani also informed the House that the construction work had been expeditiously continuing on the K-IV bulk water supply project and the scheme would be completed by July 2026.
Responding to a call attention notice, the local government minister said construction work had been continuing expeditiously on three different components of the K-IV bulk water supply project.
He said the Sindh chief minister had allocated Rs7 billion for the second component of the project so that the contractors concerned should not have to wait for the release of funds from the World Bank in this regard.
Ghani told the House that the Water & Power Development Authority had been working on the construction of a component of the K-IV project involving the water supply line from the Keenjhar Lake to Karachi and this portion of the scheme had been 55 per cent completed.
He said the second phase of the project pertained to shifting the service lines of the public utilities, which was being carried out under the Karachi Water & Sewerage Improvement Programme. The CM had released Rs7 billion for the completion of this component, Ghani said, adding that the third component of the K-IV project was related to the construction of a 50-megawatt power station with a cost of Rs16 billion and the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company was working on that component.
The local government minister said work on the three portions of the project was likely to be completed by December 2025. Afterwards, the testing of the project would commence and Karachi would likely receive additional water through the K-IV project by July 2026.
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