KARACHI: The ‘allottees’ along with the people who work as gardeners, guards or other domestic staff of some 278 beach huts from Yunusabad to Qadri Hotel at Hawkesbay staged a protest outside the Karachi Press Club on Saturday after being issued notices from the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) to vacate these huts so that the land they have been built on can be auctioned off.

Earlier in the week KMC Administrator and Commissioner of Karachi Iftikhar Shallwani cancelled the allotment of all the huts at Hawkesbay in order to “make good use of the KMC assets and increase its revenue to provide better civic facilities to the people”.

It was also said that this was all KMC property, which was also only allotted for three years.

But the protesters claimed that what the KMC was saying was not entirely true.

Haji Abdul Ghafoor, resident of the area who used to work at these huts and then also had one allotted for himself after a few years, told Dawn that there were at least three to five people working at each of these huts who would lose livelihoods if the KMC took away the huts from them.

“I was myself a poor worker here once and then I saved up some money to have land allotted for a hut, too. Now I employ five men from the locality there for maintenance, cleaning, etc,” he said.

“We were only allotted land by the KMC. And we built the huts,” he said.

Abdul Wahid, another allottee who is also an area local, said that he and his brother along with their families had been living in Yunusabad since before partition and they were allotted land for two huts till 2021 and 2025, respectively.

He said the land for each hut was about 80 to 100sq yards. “We built the huts, not the KMC. And now they want to auction them off! We pay an annual Rs16,000 fees to the KMC for these huts.

“They are beachfront huts so need much repair the year round due to the salt spray from the sea. Then due to the coronavirus pandemic there were not many people coming to the beach this year. Besides, for two to three months during monsoon there is Section 144 imposed, banning people from going into the water and in winter there was a dearth of picnickers anyway, so we are hardly earning more than two to two-and-a-half lakhs from the huts,” he said.

“We thought something was up with the KMC when for the past three years we were being sent back by them without their accepting the fees. Now we know. They want the land back,” he said.

Adnan Shafi, another allottee of a double unit said that he had been regularly paying the KMC his rent. He had receipts of having paid them Rs22,000 annually. “I am not even behind in payments,” he smiled and shrugged. When asked how come the KMC accepted his payments while refusing the others, he claimed that they were moody and ‘greedy’. “Sometimes they don’t want it, but then seeing the money they sometimes also take it,” he laughed.

Danish Dubash, another hut allottee, said that he has a hut, which he has never rented out. “I am not doing anything wrong. I pay the taxes. I pay the hut fees but for the past three years it was evident that something was up with them regarding Hawkesbay. They just want to sell off this prime land. Well, at least don’t lie about it,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2020