Daily Times

The ugly web of electricity and cable wires, scattered litter, poor sanitation with open gutters and water ponding, irregularly built structures, traffic jams, encroachments, poor public transport facilities, reckless driving of motorcycles and Qingqi rickshaws with exasperating noise, smoke rising from the burning of municipal or hospital waste, contaminated drinking water, broken roads, sewerage and water supply lines are all some eye-catching attributes of a typical secondary level city, with a population between 30,000 to 300,000 — Sindh particularly. Why are our cities losing attraction and gaining problems? Who is responsible for messing up this city’s life? What are the possible solutions to make cities vibrant and planned?
Sustainability is a continuous process of moving towards ameliorated options. However, our cities have yet to adopt sustainability thinking in their functions. A majority of the population lives in areas that are unorganised and devoid of basic urban facilities to a large extent. Urban sprawling, which extends the boundaries of cities outwards, indicates population growth and the migration of people to the urban areas. This haphazard growth significantly lacks city planning and regulation norms. By overlooking municipal rules, urban development is customised by communities without respecting local laws due to the weaknesses of the local public institutions, primarily the local municipal committee. Household level municipal solid waste collection and a transport/disposal system are almost non-existent in secondary level cities. Public toilet facilities are absent and empty spaces, sides of the walls and garbage corners suffice, whereas females have to suffer, mainly around bus stations and public places. Unprotected electricity poles and exposed wires pose risks to public safety all the time and give an unpleasant look. Illegal water supplies and drainage connections are self-regulatory with more individual or communal rules and little municipality procedures are observed. For these reasons, the city’s beauty has been ruined and multifaceted, urban problems keep growing. Ironically, urban planning, implementation and regulation — core governing aspects — are compromised over political, bureaucratic and personal interests. Ultimately, the city is beset by mismanagement practices and a vicious cycle of problems causes citizens to suffer chaotic living perpetually.
Both public and local government institutions are responsible for exaggerating urban problems in the city. The public violates rules since the local public institutions’ governance is poor and regulatory structure has badly collapsed. As a result, the anomaly provides opportunities to the public to opt for a convenient way that suits their interests without considering the negative effects of their actions over the surroundings and, ultimately, the whole city. The role of local public institutions is immensely important to improving the quality of life in the urban area. In this regard, the municipality is entrusted with responsibility through the local government act to take the lead and forge short, medium and long-term strategic planning measures, an implementation framework and regulation activities in its jurisdiction. However, a huge gap exists between the local government law, the municipality’s actions and its performance. For instance, the master or development plan, if formulated, is devoid of onboard key stakeholders and effective public participation. A feedback mechanism is not encouraged by the authorities to avoid any conflict of interest. In reality, at least in Sindh province, the bureaucracy, political influential entities and their cronies have high hands to adopt the ways that most suit their priorities in governing a local municipal committee. Ideally, public documents and informative materials must be accessible and available on the municipality’s website or in office so the public knows how the authorities are planning to improve our city and are able to provide comments that must be heard and accommodated. The municipality’s role is far more than doing clerical work, running a few fire-brigades and water pumping stations, supplying unfiltered drinking water, supervising watchmen and the staff of water supply schemes and groups of sanitary workers. It is a fact that all kinds of resources are scarce at the disposal of the municipality due to several reasons but it cannot be denied that available resources are not utilised fairly.
Cities are hubs of economic and social activities, a confluence of rural, semi-urban and urban areas. Given that, there is no second thought in making our cities sustainable and smart with locally compatible and driven solutions based on visionary urban planning approaches, efficient public transport, green areas, lively social and business activities, improved basic urban services and a healthy environment. The local municipality is responsible for taking a step beyond the routine work of businesses to gradually improve its service delivery and regain lost public trust. Also, the tax and utility bills’ recovery system must be reformed to increase revenue generation, which the municipality can utilise in improving its services or investing in the new projects. Towards this, several possibilities exist in the world. For instance, solid and liquid waste can be used as a resource. The municipality can improve the solid waste collection system from households, offices, markets and business areas, and start a small-scale waste recycling plant in the city and use organic waste for composting. This might be a win-win situation, solving the sanitation and environmental problem, generating jobs and earning revenues at the same time.
Similarly, the municipality can also work on municipal wastewater treatment. It is likely to be a profitable business that can sell treated wastewater and sewage sludge (bio-solids), which is natural fertiliser for farmers. By doing so, the municipality will be producing health by minimising the use of chemical fertilisers and reducing health risks associated with the use of untreated wastewater. Unfortunately, at present, more than 90 percent of municipal liquid waste, without any treatment, is being directly utilised in agriculture fields in the vicinity of our cities for vegetable and crop produce. No doubt, some part of the waste is discharged into agriculture canals. This is a maladaptation practice of the city, solving one problem of discharging waste by jeopardising public health through the intake of contaminated food.
In future, the municipality will have to begin the process of problem solving, soliciting assistance and enhancing its capacity in all respects. One opportunity is for the gap between local public institutions and research institutions to be bottlenecked through partnership building between the municipality and universities, research bodies and technical institutions in the region for their cutting-edge research and technical assistance. Universities can provide solutions and possibly assist in developing locally feasible waste management facilities or customising the best available technology corresponding to local needs. This symbiosis between research institutions and the municipality could open new ways of thinking and applied research, and provide an opportunity to faculty and students to engage in research work on a range of urban problems. In addition, the municipality can also seek public-private partnership for investment and technical support in waste management. The possibilities for moving towards a sustainable city are numerous, subject to unwanted political interference, corruption and vested interests. The municipality must serve as an autonomous professional institution.

The writer is a freelance contributor