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Sindh Katchi Abadi Regularisation 2026: 2011 Cutoff & New NOC Rule
By Mariam Khan
Real Estate Analyst
5 min read
The Sindh Assembly was told that only informal settlements established before 2011 will be eligible for regularisation and lease, with settlements formed afterward treated as encroachments and a Board of Revenue No Objection Certificate now mandatory for the regularisation process. A decision on Lines Area resettlement plots is expected within 10 to 12 days.
The Cutoff Date Itself Is Not New
It is important to understand this correctly: the 31 December 2011 cutoff was not newly introduced in this Assembly session. Sindh's provincial cabinet had already decided to extend the cutoff date for katchi abadi regularisation from an original 30 June 1997 to 31 December 2011, amending the Sindh Katchi Abadis Act, 1987 accordingly. That earlier decision itself extended legal recognition to a further 14 years of informal settlement growth beyond the original cutoff. What appears genuinely new in this Assembly session is the reaffirmation of this criteria alongside specific enforcement details, the mandatory Board of Revenue NOC requirement and the imminent Lines Area resettlement decision, rather than the cutoff date itself.
What the Actual Eligibility Criteria Require
Under the Sindh Katchi Abadis Act, 1987 and the Sindh Katchi Abadis Regulations, 1993, a settlement must meet specific conditions to qualify for regularisation, including its establishment date relative to the applicable cutoff, and a minimum dwelling unit threshold. Settlements that fail either test, whether formed after the cutoff date or below the minimum unit threshold, do not qualify under this framework and are treated as encroachments rather than eligible katchi abadis. Regularisation under these regulations typically results in a lease of generally 99 years once a settlement successfully clears the required verification steps.
The Scale of Sindh's Documented Katchi Abadi Population
The scale of what this framework is meant to address is genuinely substantial. By 2007, Karachi alone was estimated to have around 7.5 million people living in squatter settlements. The Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority announced in 2019 that a total of 1,414 katchi abadis had been located across the province, with 1,006 of those already contacted regarding the start of a regularisation process, broken down as 575 settlements in Karachi, 408 in Hyderabad, 144 in Shaheed Benazirabad, 112 in Larkana, 91 in Sukkur, and 84 in Mirpurkhas.
Why the Board of Revenue NOC Requirement Matters
Making a Board of Revenue NOC mandatory for regularisation adds a distinct, formal verification layer beyond simply confirming a settlement's establishment date. This means a settlement meeting the 2011 cutoff and dwelling unit criteria still cannot proceed to formal regularisation or lease without separate, documented clearance from the Board of Revenue, the provincial body responsible for land records. This creates a second, independent checkpoint that a settlement's occupancy claim must pass, beyond the date and unit count criteria alone.
A Documented Precedent Showing How Complicated Individual Cases Can Get
Even settlements that have already received formal government sanction for regularisation have historically faced significant practical hurdles at the individual applicant level. In one documented case involving a katchi abadi on defence land in Karachi, sanctioned for regularisation in 1988, more than 1,800 applications were received for leases, but several hundred occupants never applied at all, and authorities faced ongoing difficulty determining who should actually receive a lease among original occupants, current occupants, and later transferees, complicated further by non cooperation and illegal property sales along the way. This kind of case illustrates that formal sanction for a settlement's regularisation does not automatically resolve every individual occupant's or buyer's claim cleanly.
The Lines Area Decision Specifically
A decision on resettlement plots in Lines Area is expected within 10 to 12 days of this Assembly session. Lines Area redevelopment has historically been one of Karachi's more prominent and long running resettlement projects, and a forthcoming decision here would represent a concrete, near term test of how this broader regularisation framework, including the new NOC requirement, is actually applied in practice on a specific, high profile site.
What This Means for Occupants and Existing Lease Holders
For residents of settlements established before the 2011 cutoff, this reaffirmation confirms their continued path toward eligibility for regularisation and lease, though actual completion of that process now depends on successfully clearing the Board of Revenue NOC requirement as well. Residents of settlements formed after 2011 should understand clearly that they fall outside this regularisation framework entirely and will be treated as encroachments rather than eligible katchi abadis under current policy.
What This Means for Buyers and Property Transactions
Cutoff date occupancy claims, lease status, and the underlying legality of any property transaction connected to a former or current katchi abadi are directly affected by this framework. Anyone considering a transaction involving land with any informal settlement history should independently verify three things directly with the relevant Sindh authorities: the settlement's documented establishment date relative to the 31 December 2011 cutoff, its dwelling unit count against the required minimum, and whether the specific plot or lease in question has actually secured the mandatory Board of Revenue NOC. Given the documented history of individual applicant disputes even within already sanctioned settlements, a settlement's general reputation as an established, longstanding area is not sufficient confirmation of any specific plot's clean, transferable title.