KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly witnessed noisy scenes on Friday as opposition lawmakers raised slogans, disrupting the proceedings shortly after the session began.
The session, chaired by Speaker Syed Awais Qadir Shah, started after considerable delay from its scheduled time of 2:30pm.
MQM lawmakers began raising slogans of “Sindhudesh Na Manzoor” at the outset.
The speaker asked the members to maintain order, saying, “Whatever had to happen happened yesterday. What will you do today?” His appeal; however, failed to calm the opposition members, who continued shouting and chanting slogans. The noise became so loud that proceedings could barely be heard.
Amid the uproar, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar presented an audit report before the house. Despite the disorder, Adviser to the Chief Minister on Human Settlements Najmi Alam responded to written and supplementary questions from lawmakers about the Katchi Abadis Department.
He said only informal settlements established before 2011 would be regularised through leases. Any settlement established after 2011 would not be leased and would be treated as an encroachment.
He said a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Board of Revenue was mandatory for leasing, adding that no new settlement could be established without the NOC.
Najmi Alam said 50 per cent of the money collected from Katchi Abadis was spent on development of the same settlements. He attributed the growing population of Karachi partly to continued migration from other parts of the country.
He said the Lines Area project belonged to the Local Government Department and a project director had been appointed. A board meeting would be held within 10 to 12 days to decide plots for the resettlement process. He said a plot in a Katchi Abadi would not be allotted to anyone who already owned property elsewhere.
The government, he said, had asked the Revenue Department to provide land for establishing a “Sasti Basti” (low-cost settlement), where low income people would be provided houses on installments. The government would provide land and facilitate the scheme but would not construct the houses itself.
He said removing people living on storm-water drains was the responsibility of the district administration, adding that work was also under way to grant ownership rights to people in Tharparkar and Umerkot who did not have proper documentation. He said survey forms were being distributed in Katchi Abadis to prevent illegal buying and selling of properties.
During the proceedings, MQM lawmaker Amir Siddiqui moved a call-attention notice on the water shortage in Karachi. He said residents of Adam Colony and Soldier Bazaar were facing severe water shortages and were in great difficulty.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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