Published: Sunday, 4 May, 2008, 01:54 AM Doha Time
An aerial view of the Baloch Colony
LOCAL residents in the Messaimar (formerly Abu Hamour) area have demanded that the three-decade-old Baloch Colony in the locality be moved to an appropriate and bigger place with basic amenities, a health centre and a school, local Arabic daily Arrayah has reported.
The Baloch Colony inhabited by about 12,000 Pakistani and Iranian Baloch. Messaimer is being rapidly developed for building residential villas, schools and other projects.
According to the paper, some of the Qataris in the area have called for a regular residential area rather than a haphazard one to be built for this community which is thought to have arrived in Qatar in early 1950s. Most of them never went back and found jobs in the country.
Gulf Times contacted the Baloch community leaders and found out that the piece of land, where they now live, was donated to the government by a Sheikh some 30 years ago to be used as a graveyard.
The government gave the land to the community on the condition that they will build regular ˜brick houses on their own and pay QR100 a year to the municipality. At the time, the Baloch were living in makeshift houses near what is now Al Ahli Stadium.
The agreement clearly pointed out that the land will continue to be the property of the government.
The colony to date does not have regular water lines and tankers deliver water to the area charging the houses QR300 every two months.
Most of the houses were built by the Baloch by investing our incomes and savings, they said.
The average building cost of the mostly one-room houses was QR10, 000-20,000, according to the residents.
The chairman of Pakistan Baloch Social Welfare Organisation, Abdul Latif Baloch, and other Baloch community leaders appreciated the idea of moving the colony to a new locality with all the basic amenities, but expressed the hope that the government would compensate the poor residents purely on humanitarian grounds.
If there are any plans indeed by the authorities to move this community to a new area, we request the government to help the people as it would be impossible for them to build new houses on their own,said Baloch.
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