KARACHI, Oct 7: There are countless illegal stakeholders of Gutter Baghicha, loved by rulers in different eras of its 100-year history, who have constantly been contributing to the destruction of the garden-cum-sewage farm, still waiting for the due status as announced most recently by President Musharraf.

While a large proportion of its originally 1,017-acre area has already been encroached upon, reducing it to mere 480-acre plot, negligence and indifference on the part of relevant authorities have been encouraging unscrupulous elements to continue with their spree.

Visible and invisible hazards of almost all kinds are attached to the environment within and around the fertile and expensive piece of land which has long been subjected to ruthless dumping of hazardous material, criminal activities, illegal trade and cultivation of injurious crops.

All these facts came to light more explicitly when a team of reporters undertook a visit, arranged by a local NGO, to different parts of the Gutter Baghicha on Tuesday.

According to the Karachi Guide & Directory 1915, the farms had been providing cereals, green fodder, vegetables etc. to the garden department of the local municipality and generating a considerable amount as profit on them.

Located close to the city’s centre, the amenity plot which had been identified in civic documents as ‘a sewage farm’ has been unofficially allowed by successive city administrations to be encroached upon. The beneficiaries of the unlawful facility included a lot of businessmen, industrialists and traders having their place of work all around the garden’s vicinity. They have turned the whole interior of the Baghicha into a dumping site creating rocks of garbage, filth, debris, chemicals, etc elsewhere. The rocks, swelling day by day, have not only been creating a considerable degree of pollution in the whole locality, but also posing a serious threat to the health of residents as well as visitors of the area.

The NGO pointed out that as per different government maps and documents, the Baghicha held the status of ‘Municipal Gardens’. Owing to its importance and the potentials it possessed, President Musharraf had announced that it would be given the status of ‘national park’ and had ordered initiation of the process. The city government had also announced a competition in May 2002 to suggest an attractive and impressive name for the gardens. However, all the pledges and plans have so far proved to be just documents confined to files.

According to the NGO, those who have been sharing the Baghicha’s land are KMC Officers Cooperative Housing Society (200 acres), Ismaelia Garden Cooperative Housing Society (over seven acres), Safia Begum and others (two plots measuring 10,788 square yards), a petrol pump, 10 factories (8.3 acres), cottage industry plots and unauthorized hydrants.

The KWSB treatment plant, which has sliced 135 acres, is yet to be installed. According to an official, the plant would enable the authorities to recycle waste-water industrial purposes instead of siphoning it into the sea.

The newsmen were led to an open piece of land within the Baghicha where 300 plots of one acre each had been demarcated by the DDO (land) for cultivation. However, it was unbelievable to see that the land was being fed by highly contaminated water discharged by the industrial units around. The stinking water appeared to be main source of intolerable odour in the surrounding areas. It was pointed out that vegetation through the chemical-contaminated water would no doubt produce extremely hazardous crop to be offered to citizens.