Orangi Pilot Project How politics involved in OPP

1. Orangi Pilot Project
Course Title: International Politics of Environment

2. Group #1
Presented to:
Sir Haris Kabir
Presented by:
Zain Ullah

3. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Environmental Problems/Effects
3. Political aspect
4. Director’s Assassination
5. Court Verdict
6. Conclusion

4. 1. Introduction
Orangi:
• Orangi is a municipality approximately 60 square kilometers (22 sq. mi) in an area that forms much of the northwestern part
of Karachi, Pakistan.
• Established in 1965
• Population is about 2.4 Million (2017)
Pilot Project:
• The pilot project is an initial small-scale implementation that is used to prove the viability of a project idea.
• Pilot programs – also known as feasibility studies or experimental trials – are short-term tests that can help you and your
company learn how a larger-scale project might work for you in practice.

5. Conti…
Orangi Pilot Project:
• Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) as an NGO began work in Orangi town in 1980. Orangi situated in the periphery of Karachi is a
cluster of 113 low income settlements with a population of 2.4 million.
• It was initiated by Akhtar Hameed Khan, a North Indian muhajir from Uttar Pradesh, and implemented by Perween
Rahman, a Bihari from Bangladesh and involved the local residents solving their own sanitation problems.
• The goal of OPP is to alleviate the effects of poverty across the region. The OPP emphasized the need to create affordable
sanitation, health, housing & finance facilities.
• OPP decided to strengthen people’s initiatives with social & technical guidance. It is demonstrated through the programs
that at the neighborhood level people can finance, water supply, schools, clinics, solid waste disposal & security.

6. Conti…
• In 1988, OPP project upgraded to three autonomous institutions:
1. OPP-Research & Training Institution (RTI):
It manages the sanitation, housing and social forestry
programmes in Orangi, plus the replication and associated training for all programmes.
2. OPP-Orangi Charitable Trust (OCT):
It manages the credit programmes.
3. OPP-Karachi Health & Social Development Association (KHASDA):
It manages all health related
programs.

7. 2. Environmental Problems
• Mismanaged Sewage System
• Poor Water Sanitation
• Microbial & Chemical Contamination
• Household Garbage
• Overcrowding
• Loss of Mangroves Forest

8. 3. Political Aspects
 Tankers Mafia:
• Karachi’s bulk supply is 665 MGD, main sources of water is from Indus river & Hub Dam. The gap between the actual
supply and the availability is 272.25MGD which is siphoned from the bulk distribution and sold through tanker supplies.
Approximately, 41% of Karachi’s Water is stolen per day which constitutes about Rs 50 billion annually.
• There are group of Influential peoples have full support of Government agencies, local Councilors, mayors & Police are all
involved in Siphoning of Water.
 Mapping the Goths (village or Informal settlements):
• Perween Rehman initiated Secure Housing Support Programme. 61% of Karachi’s residents live in 539 katchi abadis,
which are located on government owned land. In the neighborhood of Orangi, old goths (villages) were being bulldozed by
land-hungry formal land informal developers, and residents’ lands were being confiscated.

9. Conti…
• Land grabbers occupy the Informal settlements. They make them commercial & convert this land into housing Societies &
then sell them as plots. It believed that this mafia is not just a few land grabbers, but rather operates through an
impermeable nexus of politicians, criminals, property dealers and corrupt government officials, who all share loot.
• According to Karachi University (KU) sources, at least three acres out of the seven acre land has so far been gobbled by the
land mafia, which been mooching millions of rupees from businesses illegally established on the property by their aid.
• In the interview, Perween Rahman had called Rahim Swati a “land grabber and extortionist” and stated that the latter
wanted to illegally occupy the land of the OPP’s office, the charge sheet stated.
 Mega Mismanagement:
• Mega management is needed. This would enable provision of water to all at an affordable humane cost, while making
KWSB a solvent institution.

10. 4. Director’s Assassination
• Parveen, who was a renowned urban planner and social activist, was murdered in a drive-by shooting on her car at the
Banaras flyover a few minutes after she left her office for home on March 13, 2013.
• The case was initially registered at the Pirabad police station under Sections 302 of premeditated murder.
• She wrote an important paper on water, and in another paper she identified the role of a mafia like informal water supply
process. During her research on the water mafia, she was also threatened by them.
• The very next day, Police killed a Taliban operative named, Qari Bilal, in an encounter & claimed he was the murderer
resulting in a closure of the case.
• The victim’s sister, Aquila Ismail, had expressed dissatisfaction in the Sindh police and requested the apex court to order the
federal government to constitute a JIT under the supervision of the Federal Investigation Agency.
• DIG Police Babur Bakht Qureshi, the director of the JIT, stating that probed the case with regard to suspected involvement
of the water and land mafia in the killing of Perween Rehman.

11. 5. Court Verdict
• A joint investigation team (JIT) was formed to probe the murder of the social worker. Accused Hussain had told the team
that Raheem Swati and local ANP leader Ayaz Swati were asking Rehman to hand over a piece of land to them. However,
after she refused, the political party's leader paid a banned organisation to murder her, he told the JIT.
• A Karachi anti-terrorism court (ATC) awarded four accused to double life sentences in the murder case of social activist
Parveen Rehman on 17 December, 2021.
• The ATC sentenced Ayaz Swati, Raheem Swati, Amjad Hussain Khan, and Ahmed Khan alias Pappu Kashmiri to double life
imprisonment after they were found guilty of her murder.
• The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday acquitted all five men sentenced in the murder case of renowned rights activist
Perween Rahman citing a lack of evidence and ordered their release.
• Rahman’s family termed the acquittal a “grave injustice” in a press release issued today and said they would challenge it in
the Supreme Court.

12. Conti…
• “All the accused persons are hardened, desperate and dangerous criminals,
who pose a grave and imminent threat to the family of Perween Rahman and
the entire staff of OPP,” the press release reads, adding that their release
might force OPP to shut its office.
• The Pakistan People’s Party-led (PPP) Sindh government has decided against
releasing the suspects, allegedly involved in murder of renowned rights
activist Parveen Rehman.
• According to details, the Sindh government decided not to release the alleged
suspects for three months under Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance
(MPO). In the statement, the provincial government claimed that lives of
family members of Parveen Rehman including her sister were under threat.

13. 6. Conclusion
• OPP’s initiative to motivate people to construct proper sanitation system on self-finance basis has been a success as more
than a hundred settlements and areas have adopted it in Karachi with the help of the NGO’s technical experts.
• The OPP experience is certainly an outstanding example of Community participation which can be emulated not in other
cities of Pakistan but in other countries too.
• Open drainage system, Poor sanitation & Contaminated water are the root causes of Environmental problems like Water
pollution, decrease in soil productivity & causes loss of aquatic ecosystem.
• Praveen Rahman had been getting death threats from land grabbing mafias but bravely continued to do her work. She was
shot dead in Karachi in March 2013. It is such a matter of shame that we didn’t even let this great lady die her natural death.
• Tank mafia or Land grabbers operates through an impermeable nexus of politicians, criminals, property dealers and corrupt
government officials, who all share loot.