Rehousing slum dwellers

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Thousands of people who were displaced by the Sindh government's inexplicable decision to blame them for Karachi's flooding problem are still homeless because provincial authorities have failed to implement Supreme Court orders to compensate them. These people lived around three nullahs - Gujjar, Orangi and Mahmoodabad - which would regularly get clogged and overflow during rains and other water surges.

The Supreme Court had ordered their eviction in support of a government plan to raze encroachments and repave roads around the nullahs to improve the city's natural drainage. However, the court also wanted the evicted people fairly compensated. The government eventually came up with a figure of 6,932 affectees, which is a gross undercount since many structures had undocumented residential subletting - UN human rights experts said in 2021 that between 67,000 and 96,000 would be affected by the plan. Topping off the situation is that since the razing and paving work was completed, shopkeepers have encroached on the new footpaths, forcing pedestrians onto roads and creating an even bigger traffic mess.

Meanwhile, city and provincial authorities have done nothing to address the real cause of the problem - illegal garbage dumping and wastewater disposal. Karachi has an atrocious solid waste management system, which leaves several thousand tonnes of garbage uncollected. Most of this garbage ends up in illegal dumps along nullahs, or in the nullahs themselves.

At the same time, affordable housing and other fair resolutions to Karachi's housing problems are not on the government's agenda, meaning slums will continue to pop up. The provincial government can blame encroachers all they want, but this problem - and its solution - are wholly within the government's hands. Also, given that the problem has existed for several decades, the ruling party has had plenty of time during its 15-plus uninterrupted years in charge to come up with a holistic solution instead of patchwork fixes.