ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi Sunday offered condolences on the death of Tasneem Siddiqui, a former Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) civil servant revered for his social work.
In a tweet, the president also lauded the services of the former Sindh chief secretary.
“Tasneem Siddiqui, outstanding hero [and] bureaucrat passes away. My condolences to the family, that includes all who live in katchi abadis (slums), the poor, landless [and] homeless for whom he had ideas [and] compassion [and] whom he served. A great man indeed,” he tweeted.
President Dr. Arif Alvi expresses grief over the sad demise of, an outstanding hero & bureaucrat, Tasneem Siddiqui. pic.twitter.com/90u1fltDGr
— The President of Pakistan (@PresOfPakistan) January 30, 2022
Siddiqui, 82, died in Karachi on Saturday of cardiac arrest. He left behind his wife, Kishwar Sultana, two sons and a daughter.
He was most celebrated for his conceptualisation of Khuda Ki Basti, a low-cost housing scheme for low-income groups, in Hyderabad and the reinvigoration of the Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority.
The incremental housing development was first tested in 1986 and has been accepted as a successful model to solve the shelter problem of the urban poor.
The scheme was developed by Saibaan — an NGO of which Siddiqui was the chief — on 100 acres acquired from Malir Development Authority (MDA).
“Housing facilities for the low-income groups in urban areas, particularly in the cosmopolitan cities, are next to nil while thousands of acres of state land are being occupied by land grabbers to plunder the poor on count of low-cost housing schemes,” he once observed.
Siddiqui’s services as a civil servant were acknowledged by the Philippines government which honoured him with the Ramon Magsaysay Award. He was also awarded a Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1999.
