Business community demands city survey exercise
PHOTO: AFP
Although Hyderabad’s three out of four talukas were long ago declared urban areas and its fourth taluka also recently became officially recognised as urban, the political and bureaucratic influences continue to be a stumbling block against the City Survey mechanism.
The survey was supposed to be carried out under Sindh City Survey Act, 1987, and Sindh City Survey Rules, 1988, to allot a numerical identification codes to all lands and buildings for the property registration process. In the absence of the city survey, the municipalities maintain the land record, which violates the Act.
The business community of Sindh’s second largest urban centre has said that in the absence of a city survey by the Board of Revenue Sindh, the land records of many areas of Latifabad, Qasimabad and Tando Jam continue to be maintained as per the centuries old method practised in the rural areas.
The record of the survey of land or buildings is neither being maintained in Latifabad nor most parts of Qasimabad as well as Hyderabad talukas by the City Survey Department.
The Hyderabad Chamber of Small Trade and Industry (HCSCI) took up this issue with the Sindh government through a letter addressed to Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah recently. “All the 12 units in Latifabad are highly valuable, but unfortunately, the City Survey notifications have not been implemented because of the political influences for the last three decades,” HSCI President Muhammad Farooq Shaikhani pointed out.
He emphasised that the city survey is indispensable to performing the works of land ownership, mapping and title enquiry. Shaikhani said the move would benefit the citizens and the business community.
Shaikhani apprised the CM that four separate notifications have been issued since 1996 when the CM’s father, former CM Syed Abdullah Shah, was notified of the city survey implementation on May 22, 1996.
“The Sindh Board of Revenue is pleased to authorise the Director of Settlements, Survey and Land Records to carry out an operation of City Survey in Qasimabad and Tando Jam towns,” reads a December 6, 2000, notification of the BoR. Two more similar notices were issued on January 25, 2010, and January 7, 2011.
The survey number is assigned to any land or building site for identification. The 1987 act regulates the survey of lands other than agricultural lands. The survey officer is supposed to enquire and determine the ownership, extent of encroachment and easement, jurisdiction and claimed or unclaimed status of a land or building site. All building sites have to be separately measured and defined by boundaries, and all those measurements have to be recorded in a book along with a plane table map.
According to Shaikhani, the people face difficulties in purchasing and selling properties due to the absence of the city survey. He said the move would also help the government increase its revenue collection.
“There is no lack of will on the part of the city survey department. It’s just the vested interests raking in heaps of money illegally by keeping us out,” said an officer of the city survey, requesting anonymity. He claimed that many revenue officers have tried to kick start the city survey in Latifabad and Qasimabad. Still, they face resistance from the other officers illegally doing their department’s work each time.
Earlier this month, deputy commissioner Hyderabad Fuad Ghaffar Soomro barred the officers of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation from exercising the powers of subdivision, amalgamation and land-use conversion of the plots as well as giving approvals of multi-storeys structures. These functions pertain to the Hyderabad Development Authority and Sindh Building Control Authority.
The corporation has been stopped from using these powers for the first time. However, the DC Soomro is reportedly facing a backlash from certain influential quarters, including an MPA of the Pakistan Peoples Party. He is said to be making efforts to get him transferred.
The Association of Builders And Developers (ABAD) Kashif Shaikh said the HMC had been illegally charging a fee, besides eliciting bribes, from the residents of Latifabad for property-related functions not in the corporation’s purview. He also blamed the HMC for badly violating Latifabad’s master plan.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2022