A number of encroachments including concrete houses and other structures have been built on land owned by Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) in Deh Bijar Bhatti and Deh Taiser, revealed officials of KWSB. According to the water board officials, encroachments alongside two water reservoirs, water pumping stations, filtration plant, offices and KWSB staff colonies have made it difficult for KWSB technicians and engineers to discharge their respective duties. KWSB Land and Estate Director Shoaib Tuqlaq said that the entity had approached several authorities including the Board of Revenue (BOR) and police officials to request the removal of illegal encroachments from the reserved land but nothing came out of it. “Instead, we faced resistance from influential land grabbers when we tried taking action against them,” said Tuqlaq. “Land grabbers are being sheltered by the police, influential personnel of the BOR dept and other powerful elements,” he claimed. KWSB officials shared that the entity also requested Sindh BOR to delegate power for removal of encroachment under Anti-Encroachment Section of Sindh Public Property Act 2010 to assistant commissioner Sheikh Muhammad Rafique. The KWSB officials said that a reply was received on August 16 in which BOR informed KWSB that only Mukhtiarkars of the area were authorised to take action against encroachments under section 3 of Sindh Public Property (Removal of Encroachment) Act, 2010 since only they possessed the land records and could determine status of a particular stretch of land. The officials further said that KWSB Managing Director Khalid Mehmood Sheikh also wrote a letter to West deputy commissioner on September 4 regarding the issue. They said that the letter contained attached images of encroaching structures but no steps were taken by the commissioner to resolve the issue. According to KWSB officials, another attempt to seek legal assistance from the West deputy commissioner was made by Major (r) Nawaz Gondal, the chief security officer of KWSB. They said that he wrote a third letter on September 25, 2018. “We are still waiting for a reply,” added the officials. The KWSB officials said that the deputy commissioner had official powers to initiate an action against the illegal encroachments and seek the assistance of other stakeholders including Rangers, Sindh Anti-Encroachment Force, area police and revenue department in this regard. They further shared that in addition to this piece of reserved land which was acquired in 1975 for the third phase of Karachi Bulk Water Supply and later granted to KWSB, there were several other sites of the entity which had been encroached by land grabbers. The officials said that residential houses and apartment complexes had been built on that land. They revealed that reserved land of entity around treatment plant (TP-I) Haroonabad, TP-II Mahmoodabad, TP-III Mauripur and newly proposed reserved land for TP-IV had also been encroached upon partially by land grabbers. It is pertinent to mention here that nine former managing directors of KWSB are under investigation by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on charge of corrupt practices including involvement in entity’s land matters. Iftikhar Haider, former MD KWSB is behind bars on this pretext while former MD, Misbahuddin Fareed has escaped the country. Published in Daily Times, September 27th 2018.