Why do
katchi abadis come up, especially when the
poor have to pay for the land and the
primitive utilities they get? Aquila Ismail
explains the reason.
It has been widely documented that housing
in katchi abadis develops in an incremental
way. One of the major determinants of the
pace and level of development of houses is
the degree of recognition of the settlement,
which in its turn is reflected by items of
the infrastructure the public agencies
develop in an incremental - albeit not very
systematic - way. Full recognition through
legalization is therefore only one milestone
on the long road from an incipient and
tentative unserviced cluster of huts to a
fully legal and serviced neighbourhood with
decent permanent housing. It should be
noted, however, that even when this stage
has been reached, the inhabitants keep
extending and improving their houses, for
example, by adding a storey, raising or
replacing roofs, etc.
In the process of development, horizontal
and vertical expansion, rooms are added to
the houses. This is especially relevant in
view of the tendency towards growing
household sizes. In addition, larger
dwelling units house one household. While
overall, 84.5 per cent of the dwelling units
house one household only, eight per cent
provide shelter to two households, four per
cent to three families and a few to four,
five and even six households. The total
average number of households per dwelling
unit is 1.27. In view of the occurrence of
more than one household per dwelling unit,
the number of rooms used by the household
interviewed is consistently somewhat lower
than the total number of rooms on the plot.
Infrastructure
While the quality and distribution of items
of the infrastructure still leave much to be
desired, many households in katchi abadis
enjoy a decent level of servicing. Nearly 30
per cent of the housing units have private
water connectionswhile 60 to 70 per cent
have gas and electricity connections. Houses
in katchi abadis with buckets or no latrines
at all are rare - on an average only 13 per
cent of them. However, it should be noted
that - contrary to the figures for water,
electricity and gas - the figures for the
sewerage system point to the most
'primitive' solutions, i.e. either the
bucket latrine or no latrine at all, so that
here low figures have a positive meaning.
The reason is that it is difficult to attach
values to the different systems used. While
it might be argued that a septic tank or a
connection to a water-borne sewerage system
are the most sophisticated solutions, the
households do not always clearly distinguish
between a septic tank and a soak-pit; at the
same time, in Pakistani cities, a high
proportion of water borne sewerage does not
function, so that having a connection to
such a system is not always meaningful.
In view of the frequent system failures, one
might of course argue that the figures
presented for water and electricity
connections suggest too rosy a picture of
the situation. Yet these figures do indicate
that, within local constraints, a fairly
high number of households in katchi abadis
have attained the best possible
conveniences.
Opposition to katchi abadis
To the rich and the affluent middle classes,
katchi abadis are an eyesore. They detest
their existence. The value of their own
property goes down if a katchi abadi emerges
in their neighbourhood. They look upon
katchi abadis as filthy and environmentally
polluted areas with their inhabitants prone
to social evils such as drug abuse,
gambling, prostitution and all sorts of
crimes. They also think that these areas are
the hotbed of social and political unrest.
Most bureaucrats, city planners, engineers
and developers also detest the katchi
abadis. These abadis challenge their
aesthetic sense and commercial interests.
They would like to have them bulldozed and
utilize the land for more profitable uses,
such as high rise buildings or parks. The
existence of katchi abadis, according to
them, also reflects the authorities'
incompetence in keeping the city environment
clean and free of encroachers. Often, they
accuse the 'land mafia' of creating this
menace and the NGOs for supporting it. They
are also opposed to the agencies' initiating
development work in these settlements.
Error of perception
Contrary to common perception, katchi abadi
dwellers are neither criminals, drug
pushers, pimps, illegal immigrants,
terrorists or left-wing revolutionaries.
They are ordinary, law abiding simple folks,
eking out an existence. Of course all abadis
have their quotas of antisocial elements and
crooks. Also, there is no doubt that some of
the katchi abadis provide protection to
illegal immigrants, but then, no locality of
a big city is free of them.
Very few people pay serious attention to
what is happening around them. Still fewer
try to know why people are migrating to the
cities. It is not easy to leave the
protective social network of one's home and
land up in cities which do not promise much
more than mere survival. Upon arrival in the
city, they need a piece of land with minimal
services at an affordable price which they
can pay in easy instalments. They need
services, water and transport. They may also
need credit. Most of all, they need jobs.
Almost without exception, it is the private
or informal sector which is helping them.
They have their own health care system,
their own educational institutions, their
own places of entertainment, and their own
arrangements for obtaining water,
electricity, transport, sewage disposal,
solid waste management, etc. Most parents in
katchi abadis send their children to private
commercial schools run by the local
entrepreneurs in their abadis. They know the
value of education and do not depend on
government schools which are not available
everywhere and are of poor standard. In some
katchi abadis in Karachi the literacy rate
is as high as 80 per cent.
It is not necessarily cheaper to live in
katchi abadis instead of the formal
neighbourhood which is often the reason
stated for the rise of illegal squatter
settlements. After research in three Asian
cities it was concluded that the informal is
not cheaper, and that over a ten year period
formal housing might even be more attractive
to these people. Also, the governments can
by no means supply enough land for settling
the growing numbers in the low-income
groups. So people do not really have a
choice. Popular housing in the long run does
not cost less but there is no option for the
urban poor.
The urban housing agencies put forth two
constraints in respect of land supply. The
first is that there is no land. This is more
an argument advanced by the bureaucracy than
a reality on the ground because there is
enough land in Karachi as opposed to the
land situation in most Indian cities.
However, it is true that local governments
have to go through a long procedure before
they can actually give away the land.
The second is that there are no resources to
supply plots. This usually means there is no
pre-finance because the land sales and
leases generate revenues, which may be
sufficient to cover the costs. The
consequences of this shortage in supply are
threefold: (a) there will remain much
competition for the formal plots; (b) many
people have no choice and depend on the
informal market where there is usually no
security of tenure and no facilities; (c)
people who have obtained plots through
formal schemes might sell their plots for a
much higher market price.
Katchi abadis and the government
The existence and increase in the numbers of
katchi abadis have already started causing
problems to the ruling elite. When 50 per
cent of the population do not own land
legally, it means that the state exchequer
has neither received the cost of
development, nor do the utility agencies
receive user charges. This is not to say
that the katchi abadi dwellers have not paid
money to acquire land or are not paying
money for getting water or electricity, but
that the official agencies fail to provide
these services legally. Their procedures are
cumbersome and the incidence of corruption
is very high. Daily wage earners cannot
afford to visit the offices of the civic
agencies daily for months together to get a
connection. So they take it illegally and
pay the linesmen and valve operators at
fixed rates. They are accused of not paying,
but in fact they are paying more than what
is due and are being exploited in the
bargain. In the process, the government
agencies are getting poorer while its
functionaries are becoming richer.
Obviously, the economic costs of society's
failure to accommodate its less fortunate
members are tremendous. Utility
organizations run into huge deficits and
neither proper maintenance nor any
development activity can be undertaken by
them. The entire burden is shifted to the
consumers who pay their bills regularly. But
if the poor migrants could get a small plot
of land, they would improvize a house with
their own resources, building as they live
there. They would have willingly paid the
government for their plot of land as they
are also ready to pay for water,
electricity, gas, etc.
The emergence of katchi abadis is the
'informal' sector's response to the housing
needs of the poor. At the same time, it is
an indication of society's failure in
integrated planning keeping the grassroot
realities in view. If the economic system
had ensured well spread-out progress, was
equitable and just, and met the
socioeconomic needs of all segments of
society, if city planning were in the hands
of professionals having a vision and the
capacity to meet the needs of the ever
expanding urban areas, there would hardly be
any katchi abadi in any city.
Katchi abadis, after all, are there and keep
increasing in number and size because about
half of the population of our fast growing
cities is too poor to be able to buy or rent
a house or a plot of land, or to obtain
loans or mortgages to do so, in a legal way.
Yet, there are very few shelterless people
in the literal sense: practically all of
these poor do, somehow or the other, find
ways of sheltering themselves. Thus, it
would appear that the problem is not so much
of a technical or even financial nature.
Rather it is the law, the regulations and
the lack of appropriate planning which force
a large part of the population into seeking
illegal ways of obtaining a roof over their
heads.
Logically, a realistic policy of providing
shelter for the poor would start from the
poors' own huge potential of finding
solutions to their problems. Rather than
labelling these solutions as substandard or
illegal, the government's task would be to
guide and control such solutions; rather
than frustrating the initiatives of the
poor, the government would do better
supporting them. Such supportive policies,
which have found recognition internationally
since the early 1970s, basically consist of
two components. One is the recognition,
legalization and upgradation of existing
spontaneous settlements, thus integrating,
them into the 'legal city'. The other half
of the twin approach aims at preventing the
springing up of fresh illegal settlements by
providing a legal and affordable
alternative.
Aquila Ismailis
a freelance writer and editor.
The Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority (SKAA) was
established in 1978 to map and survey the
squatters' settlements, plan for their
improvement and issue leases or legal titles
of the plots of land to those living there.
This book is a story of the SKAA and its
successes. |
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