Clifton residents protest construction over Nehr-i-Khayyam drain

Residents and environmentalists from across Karachi held an awareness walk on Sunday against construction on Nehr-i-Khayyam, an open drain in Clifton’s Block 5. They fear that covering the channel would shrink its width and pave the way for “commercial activity”, Dawn reported.

Protesters carried placards reading “Commercial use of Nehr-i-Khayyam not accepted”, “Stop concreting drains, restore Nehr-i-Khayyam” and “Save Nehr-i-Khayyam and stop urban flooding”. They said trees that once stood along both banks now remain on only one side, with a few left along the stretch where work is going on.

What Dawn saw

A Dawn reporter who visited the site saw construction under way on one side of the drain, where two columns had been built. Half of the columns had been plastered, and T-shaped concrete blocks lay nearby.

What the protesters say

• Rasha Tarek, a member of the Karachi Residents’ Community (District South), questioned the logic of discharging sewage into the waterway and then using the pollution to justify covering more than half of it. “Where in the world do people discharge sewage into a waterway, then claim that its water is polluted and proceed to cover over half of it?” she asked. She demanded an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and public information on the project.
• Masood Lohar, founder of the Clifton Urban Forest, claimed the project was approved by the Sindh cabinet in 2019 for “recreational purposes” but is intended for commercial use. He said the authorities should make public the details of any EIA hearing and say which residents and civil society representatives were invited. He said the project was blocking a major intertidal channel between two creeks and warned that if Karachi received 250mm of rain, the port and important security installations could become dysfunctional. He called it a “national security issue”.
• Yasir Husain, an environmentalist, said a one-kilometre stretch from Ocean Mall to Boat Basin had suddenly been taken up for construction and a platform built over it. He said the project fell under the local government department, titled “Rehabilitation of Nehr-i-Khayyam, including diversion of sewerage water, district South”. “This project is not about cleaning sewage,” he said. He plans to file a right-to-information request, and the protests will continue every weekend.
• Tipu Sharif, an actor who has lived in the area for 25 years, said he had seen rapid commercialisation over the past four years. “If it was built as a waterway, why not let it remain one?” he asked, warning that a covered or narrowed channel could be blocked by garbage in the rains.

The authorities had not publicly set out the purpose or details of the project, residents said, and no official response is included in the reports.

Demands

In a press statement, residents asked for:

• construction to be suspended until the required environmental assessment is done and approval is obtained from the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency;
• disclosure of project documents, including the design;
• the channel’s full original width and banks to be kept as open public land; and
• an end to the discharge of untreated sewage into the channel, with wastewater treated before it reaches Boat Basin and the sea.

A history of objections

The Express Tribune reported that protesters fear shops, commercial buildings and a food street along the canal. Residents recalled that a similar attempt to build along the canal in 2005 was challenged in court and ended with the structure’s demolition, and alleged that work resumed in 2019. “This is a potentially disastrous project that could cause serious harm to the city,” Rasha Tariq of Clifton Residents told the paper, adding that civil society members, elected representatives, lawyers and showbiz figures had joined the campaign.

Why it matters

Karachi’s open drains are its main defence against flooding in heavy rain, and any narrowing of one on the coast, near the port, raises questions the authorities have not yet publicly answered. Without disclosed plans and an environmental assessment, the dispute is likely to continue week after week. Read our report on the clash between railway police and the KMC over a Karachi road.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn and The Express Tribune.