Mubarak Goth

Mubarak Village (Urdu: مبارک گوٹھ‎) is a fishing village in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It is located along the shore of Arabian Sea in District South. The village is 30 km away from Karachi city with a population of more than 10,000 people. The most of the people in this village are Baloch. There are five major Baloch tribes including Sanghur, Muhammad Hasni, Sajdi, Bezinjo and Kurd. Karachi’s second largest fisherman locality-Mubarak Village- does not have basic facilities including jetty, gas, health and education, despite the fact that it existed even before the British rule. Most of the local people are involved in fisheries. The major economic activity in the village is fishing followed by construction and community, social, and personal services. These neglected fishermen, whose forefathers had been living here for nearly 200 years, lack all basic amenities: they do not have any pier or jetty to offload their fish catch, nor they have access to clean water, education and health facilities. The village is still without any health care facilities and the residents have demanded the setting up of a maternity home in the area. A dispensary was set up in the village in 1996, but it lacks proper medical facilities. Recently, a maternity home’s building was also constructed by defunct city district government. Despite persistent demand by the people, no medical officer has been appointed so far. There are, however, no arrangements for dealing with emergency cases, particularly maternity cases. The villagers said in case of an emergency they had to take patients to hospitals in Karachi. In serious cases, they said, patients died on way to hospital. Fisheremn are facing a lot of problems, especially in unloading fish from boats, because there is no facility of a jetty in the area. Most of these fishermen are dependent on small boats which are built in a traditional style. Because of their conventional style, these boats are unable to sail in stormy weather and when there is a strong current in the sea. As a result of that, the fishermen had to suspend their activities, sometimes as long as for four months.

In 2009, chief minister Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah had announced to develop Mubarak Village on modern lines and construction work was started there. The government installed electricity facilities, erected poles, started work on sewerage, education, healthcare and other projects of basic amenities in the area.. After fifty percent work of the projects, the government stopped development work aborting the model village plan without any justification Now in half of the area, poles, PMTs, electric wires, etc. are installed to supply power to residents while the rest is still awaiting the government s response to have infrastructure for basic amenities. The government had released funds to the concerned authorities for electrification of the village but power supply had not been started yet, which worried the entire community. Development of the basic infrastructure has also been left half completed which includes sewerage systems and construction of new roads in the area to boost communication links of the village with the rest of the city The government had also stopped process of leasing of the village after just 10 percent of residents were given lease documents to own their houses. There had been a dam construction project besides a harbor, which the government had announced, but both key projects could not begin. However, the government has built a maternity home in the village, which is still without staff to facilitate the area people. The sudden halt to the development work in the village was beyond their comprehensions. There may be huge irregularities in fund utilization which caused a sudden halt to the millions of rupees development projects in the village. Fishermen demanded of the government to probe into the sudden halt of development work in the village and ascertain reasons that had brought the projects to a standstill. Fishermen wanted the government should complete all projects to provide relief to the city s far-flung community.

Emergence of water sports and other activities brought the revenue generation for the locals at some extent. Company like Pak Scuba, that offers snorkeling, Scuba & other water activities, hires the locals as support divers, helpers, boats and pay for parking, that helps generate revenue and give chance for locals to develop.

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    (Coord|24°51'8"N|N|66°39'48"E)