For the 3rd
consecutive year Karachi has been named among the top 10 worst cities of the
world, that summarises the
plight of socio-civics and environment of the city in 2017. The city needed
special attention in terms of new administrative order, economic development,
local policing, coherency among all civic bodies and environment management to
save it from crisis-ridden turmoil but unfortunately all these issues remained
absolutely unaddressed in this year.
The Economist Intelligence Unit – the
research and analysis division of The Economist Group – in this year’ report
has ranked Karachi at 134th in the list of 140 cities. The ranking
was devised according to qualitative and quantitative factors where the city
was found lagging behind in the categories of stability, healthcare, culture,
environment, education and infrastructure.
Throughout the year Karachi remained in a
state of civic inertia, as the City Mayor Waseem Akhtar as usually complained
his inability to deliver citing lack of required financial and administrative
powers while the Sindh Local Government remained busy more in spending the
civic and metropolitan funds in latent structures and procurements rather
initiating schemes to restructure Karachi as a planned megacity based on
sustainable and systematic terms as well as smart developmental footings.
Climate
Change Impacts
The growing impacts of Climate Change
also worsened the already fragile environs which ultimately added further
miseries into the socio-civic fabric of the city. That is the reason when in
April severe heat waves hit the southern Pakistan, Karachi recorded the highest
temperature with a sizzling 41.5 degree centigrade. Because of uneven climate
changing the city witnessed this year three spell of rainfall. The first in the
mid of January which claimed 6 lives and with lowest temperature recorded at 10
Degree Centigrade. The monsoon rainfall flooded the entire city and all
municipal and civic bodies including KMC and Cantonments were found incapable
to cater that crisis-ridden situation, which claimed 23 lives in a week.
Although, the KMC in order to avert this situation had earlier held extensive
drive of cleaning storm water drains, specially Nehr Khayyam in March and widening of Gujjar Nallah by
removing the alongside encroachments. Despite, it took weeks for KMC to
dewatering it from the metropolis. The third spell of rain arrived in the mid
of December which was very untimely and unexpected, however that day the city’
temperature fell to 10 degrees yet again.
Health Hazards
During the mid of the year serious
Chikungunya virus broke out in Karachi -- especially in the Malir
district-- which even compelled the World Health Organisation to
send a medical team to control the horrors of outbreak. According to official
figure around 4400 people affected by this virus in Sindh out of which more
than 3700 resides only in Karachi. It was also disclosed in 2017, that last
year the same outbreak claimed 405 lives in the province.
The fragilities of Karachi’ civic
conditions further exposed when in a beach tragedy 12 people of a single family
drowned at Hawks bay without getting any help from life guards on the spot.
Also, 7 people died when a building collapsed in Liaquatabad. Irregular construction of the building
can be blamed for these unwarranted deaths, however it is a fact that this
irregularity in the shapes of flat-portions and bifurcation on smaller plots
still is in regular practice, deliberately unchecked and even regularized by
the KDA.
Judiciary as Savior
However, the 2017 saw the superior
judiciary with Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar and other apex courts to act
as rescue and savior of the citizens, who has taken up cases of basic amenities
particularly in health, water, sanitation and environment sectors. The apex
courts constituted a judicial commission to make inspections of negligence in
protecting fresh water sources, the environment and marine life. The commission
exposed corrupt practices in all water and sanitation schemes besides severe
pollution in water resources, absence of sewerage disposals and gross solid
waste mismanagement.
Another worrying disclosure made in the
court was 90% of water supplied in Karachi is unfit for human consumption due
to contamination. It was revealed in a report prepared by Pakistan Council of
Research in Water Resources after analysis of 118 drinking water samples. In
another hearing the apex court directed the Sindh government to work on
effluent treatment plants and coordinate with the Federal government in
controlling the marine pollution caused by dumping of 460 million gallons of
toxic untreated industrial effluent and domestic waste each day in the Arabia
sea. The Supreme Court also grilled the Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah and
asked him to give a timeframe for the completion of public schemes relating to
water and sanitation to the apex court.
On November 30 the Supreme court in
another case also ordered the KDA and KMC for removal of all sorts of
encroachments from the amenity plots within a deadline of two months. The order
was given when the KDA revealed in a report that 35,000 amenity plots were
under encroachments in the city. The anti-encroachment drive is going on across
the city.
In another judgement Supreme Court
imposed a banned in an order on March 6 on issuance of approvals for high-rise
and multi-storeys
projects in the city. In compliance to the order the Sindh Building Control
Authority issued a notification on May 26, imposing a complete ban on the
construction of buildings beyond ground-plus-two-storeys in Karachi region forthwith.
Taking notice against encroachments,
another bench headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed took serious exception to the
practice of renting out spaces in public parks and roads by the KMC authorities
and in their judgment ordered to remove all encroachments and cabin shops from
public parks and amenity plots across the city.
Wastes’ Politics
Despite all this judicial activism,
traffic jam, garbage mismanagement and street crimes were rampant and top
unresolved civic problems of the city in 2017. The 100-Day Cleanness Drive
launched by the City Mayor ended miserably on March 10, 2017 without any
success. On the other hand, amending the SLGO 2013 the Sindh Government
transferred the responsibility of metropolitan’ solid waste from KMC to Sindh
Solid Waste Management Board. The Board then outsourced this job to a Chinese
firm Changyi Kangjie
Sanitation Engineering Company Limited in the districts of Malir and
South, besides importing hundreds of tricycle vehicles, handcarts, other
machineries and thousands of garbage bins in the city. These colourful
garbage bins can be seen in each district at sixes and sevens. However, these
developments haven’t bore fruits and it is witnessed that rather clearing and
transferring garbage to the landfill sites, it is dumped in drains, sea or
burnt on the spot. In fact, solid waste was the key civic issue in 2017, which
remained badly managed and unattended in many cases. A petition is already in court regarding
dissolution of Solid Waste Management Board by Mayor Karachi.
Commutation Woes
Regular traffic jam has also kept the
city environs extremely horrible, hectic and burdensome this year. Despite
identifying damaged roads, encroachments, regular sewage fuss, absence of
parking spaces, under-construction developments, heavy traffic movement in day
time, peak hours rush, regular rise in vehicles and absence of Mass Transit
Program as main causes of jamming, it seems the issue will remain unresolved.
The Karachi Circular Railway, which had to be begun on Dec 25, as pledged by
the CM, has been dumped again despite removing large chunk of encroachments on
Circular Railway tracks.
Similarly, the Bus Rapid Transit System
was also kicked off with Green Line in December, however it is still under
construction and this lane has been extended further from Guru Mandir to Jama
Cloth Market, as reported. Other segments of this Federal government project
like Blue Line, Yellow Line, Red Line, etc are also either under construction or in
pre-construction phase. Important projects of federal government like K-IV and
S-III are still in development stages. Though, the M-9 -- Motorway between
Karachi and Hyderabad -- was inaugurated by former Prime Minister in February
but factually it is incomplete till this date, but motorway toll money has
sizably been increased for travelling on M-9 which is still under-construction
on BOT basis.
The Sindh Government also carried out
several development projects in the city under Local Government’ Karachi
Package, though a number of these schemes were related to revamping, widening
and renovating of major roads like Shahra e Faisal and University Road. However,
opening of Underpasses like at Drigh Road, Nazimabad Chorangi and
flyover at Korangi Crossing are important developments as far as commutation is
concerned in Karachi.
Plight of Public Parks
The Jahangir Park was opened for public
after renovation by Sindh Government in November. However, situation of other
public parks in the city like Bagh e Jinnah, Burns Garden, Shaheed Benazir
Bhutto Park, Beach Park and almost all community parks across the city are in
state of badly deplorable conditions or encroached partially or completely.
Controversy, however, raised over Bagh Ibn e Qasim, when in a notification on March 30
Sindh government handed the park’ maintenance over to a private party, which
was resisted by the City Mayor and civil society. In the end the KMC won the
battle and is working on its restoration and improvement -- though park is shut
down for general public.
This tug of war between KMC and Sindh
government over metropolis’ civic and municipal issues hasn’t ended yet, in
fact it enters in 2018. Administrative heads of both institutions blame each
other for ruination of city, which is heading towards unmanageable and
unlivable with each passing day because of insincerity of authorities. And,
that ruination is continued and still unattended. As an example, when some 5000
full trees were rooted out alongside Super Highway of Karachi region for the
construction of M-9, neither the Chief Minister Sindh nor Mayor Karachi voiced
against this disaster.
By
Editorial, Infocus
