Another of the city’s shabbiest educational institutions

KARACHI: The unclaimed land of the Government College of Science and Commerce sitting idle in the densely populated area near Banaras Chowk has become a juicy delight for land grabbers, since neither the Sindh Education Department nor the local administration cared much for it. The land mafia has slowly shrink it from a lavish 16 acres to a meagre 0.5 acre.

The college, also known as the Hamid Badayuni College, was established in 1980 on the 16 acres. Its main purpose was to provide opportunities for modern education for the Orangi Town youth. Officials claim that the land on which the college stands was once owned by a trust called the Hamid Badayuni Trust. Official documents state that the Sindh government rented the land from the trust and built the college. It wasn’t long after the building was constructed and classes started that the authorities lost interest in it. The Hamid Badayuni Trust also went off the radar and the orphaned land was left to face the land mafia alone.

In 1981, a shop was built on the land and since no one stopped it, more shops popped up, bringing with them other encroachments. Today, the college has been reduced to a single small building. Once used by children to play cricket, hockey, football and tennis, the land is now a congested field of warehouses, multi-story plazas and cramped residential houses.

Since 1980, no renovation work has been done on the college building. After 28 years of its existence as a government college, the condition of the single-storey building has only gotten worse. Visiting its rooms, one feels that the building is teetering and will soon fail in its attempt to stand. It is a college with more than 500 students but not a single toilet or washroom. It is a college where the physics teacher teaches Islamiat, where there is no electricity because the main power cables were stolen. The college ground is a public dustbin cum storage facility.

College Principal Javed Akbar told that around 1,200 shops and 300 houses have been illegally established on the college land. “The college administration has repeatedly filed complaints to the higher authorities about the abuse of the college land but nobody has taken any action,” he stated. “I am worried about the remaining property, as the land mafia is trying get hold of it.”

The major problem is that the trust that owned the land does not exist any more, said Akbar, adding that the whereabouts of the trustees is also not known. Demanding the government step in and rescue the college and its property, Akbar stated that even though it is a government college, government officials don’t really care about the college as it is rented.

“We don’t even have a complete teaching staff,” he said. “The college is a commerce college but no teacher for commerce subjects is available. There isn’t anyone to even teach English.” The land mafia claims that they have purchased the college land from the trust. However, according to Pakistani laws, the land cannot be sold, claimed Akbar. Angrily picking his phone up, he revealed that his phone line has been dead for a week.

The principal feels helpless when facing these problems and seeing no way out, the students want to leave the college.

Disappointed at the miserable conditions of the college, Imran Afridi, a student leader in the college, said that half the faculty posts are vacant. He demanded that the government take ownership of the property and work on building the college faculty.

Naseem, another student, who was playing in the mini-ground of the college, reluctantly disclosed that almost half the teachers are always absent. “Due to the unavailability of teachers even the students are not regularly attending the college,” he said.

“Ignore the past fairly tales of land grabbing. Tell the government to just provide us sufficient facilities at what’s left of the building,” another student, Irfan Khalid, angrily stated.

Some of the shopkeepers, who have allegedly built their shops illegally on the college land, stated that all their properties were legal as they purchased it from the owners - ‘the trustees’.

When asked to comment on the issue, Sindh Regional Director of Colleges Munawar Shafique Khan said that it was true that the college land has been abused. “When colleges were supervised by the city governments, we sent applications to the city government to take some action against those who were grabbing the college land,” she said, adding that the then city government had not taken any action on this specific matter. “We have informed the provincial government, let us see what action it decides to take,” she stated.