Sindh approves more land for 25-year-old Karachi Education City

The Sindh government has approved nearly 6,000 additional acres of state land for a 25-year-old education project in Karachi that has yet to open a single school, college or other educational institution, according to the latest episode of Kamran Khan’s “On My Radar.”

The Karachi Education City project was announced 25 years ago, but the site remains without roads, buildings, water, electricity or gas. Despite that, the Sindh Cabinet on Aug. 5 approved the free allocation of another 5,987 acres for the project, with an estimated value of more than 150 billion Pakistani rupees.

The latest allocation has also drawn an unusual challenge from within the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. PPP lawmakers and officials from Karachi’s Malir district have accused their own provincial government of taking land from local residents and voters and treating them “like Palestinians.”

The dispute has raised fresh questions over how thousands of acres of public land have been allocated in the name of an education project that has remained largely undeveloped for decades.

Sindh had already allocated 8,921 acres for the project 24 years ago. The latest decision was made without determining what happened to the land previously allocated, according to the program.

Kamran Khan said the project had instead created a new avenue for the disposal of valuable state land under the banner of education.

The allocation goes beyond simply providing the land for free. Stamp duty has also been waived, while the government has yet to determine a book-to-book adjustment for the value of the land, according to the program.

The project initially involved the allocation of 2,500 acres to 22 educational institutions 25 years ago. But the absence of basic infrastructure prevented development, leaving the site deserted.

The Sindh government had promised to complete the first phase of development in 2010. That phase was to include gas, electricity, water, roads, a mosque and parks. A second phase was scheduled for completion in 2012.

The total development cost was estimated at 13 billion rupees.

“Projects of the Sindh government reach the ventilator as soon as they are born and then keep struggling there,” Kamran Khan said in describing the long-running delay.

Another major development came in 2013, when the Sindh Education City Act was passed. The law gave the Education City board the authority to provide state land to selected institutions at half its price.

That provision came despite a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that barred the allocation of state land to selected parties at discounted prices. The new law nevertheless created a route to provide land without an auction, and more than 52 acres were subsequently allocated to nine institutions.

Twenty-one years after the project was launched, the Sindh government again turned its attention to Education City. But before construction could begin, the thousands of acres already allocated were deemed insufficient despite remaining unused.

A new demand for 10,000 acres emerged, according to the program. The provincial government subsequently allocated another roughly 6,000 acres to the project.

As a result, the Education City has grown dramatically in land area without putting its first brick into an educational facility. The total state land allocated to the project has now reached nearly 15,000 acres over 25 years.

The latest expansion has also prompted strong objections from PPP representatives in Malir.

Abdul Hakeem and Jam Abdul Kareem, PPP representatives from Malir, criticized the provincial government over its handling of the land, saying residents were being deprived of land by their own government.

The objections mark one of the strongest challenges to the project from within the ruling party itself.

The issue was examined in the latest episode of “On My Radar,” with Kamran Khan and special correspondent Akhtiar Khokhar highlighting the gap between the project’s stated educational purpose and its decades-long lack of development.