Daily Times

After being coaxed by the Supreme Court, the government has finally held the population census after a nineteen-year hiatus. The constitution demands that the census be held every ten years.

The provisional results of the population census are being challenged particularly by the Sindh Government. The campaign was spearheaded by the Pakistan People’s Party sincere senator Taj Haider. However, doubts about the authenticity of the census figures are quite glairing to any Karachiite.

According to the 2017 provisional figures, rural and urban populations in Karachi are estimated to be around 16million. However, questions about the criteria of what is classified as rural and what is urban have often propped up.

If the provisional census figures of Karachi’s population are accepted, the city’s population in the last 19 years has grown at2.5 percent, a figure which is difficult to believe. Karachi’s growth rate has not been less than3.5% since 1947, when Pakistan was created. At this rate, the Karachi population would be around 19 million, not 16 million as shown by the provisional 2017 censes. There is a strong pull of factors that have attracted an influx of internal and international migration to Karachi.

It seems that the census teams did not have a strategy for counting the immigrants who have come to Karachi in the past 19 years. Karachi’s politicians claim that 2.6% growth rate is just a little above the natural national population growth rate. Perhaps one the reasons of underestimating Karachi’s population was that the immigrants to the city from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, South of Punjab and  interior  Sindh carry their national identity cards with the permanent address of their home town.  It is possible that immigrants are registered under their permanent residence rather than in Karachi where they live. The fact remains that these internal immigrants are now almost the permanent residents of Karachi, who use all the basic amenities of the city. For planning, the provincial and city government needs to provide for over 19 million people in the city.

Interestingly, the majority of the heavy water tankers which ply on Karachi roads are registered to some remote town in Pakistan. That means they use the city’s roads, but do not pay Karachi any road tax or vehicle registration tax

I Investment in the city by the civic councils has never kept up pace with the population growth rate. Consequently, it has provided free space to a rentier class or the mafias to fill in the vacuum at the cost of its poor residents. The backlog in the demand and supply of amenities has been piling up.

A cursory look at three major sectors; housing, transport and water shows there is a broadening gap in the demand and supply of each.

In the last 30 to 40 years we have not heard of a single housing scheme for the poor working classes in the city, while countless affluent housing schemes are being built. The military establishment has grown lavishly while the poor are left at the mercy of the land grabbers’ mafia. As a result, according to one authoritative source almost every third person lives in a katchi abadis which are established by land grabbers and have pathetic civic immunities.

Both the provincial and the city government have failed to provide adequate water to city dwellers.  The demand is of over 1.18 mgd while the supply is only 650 mgd.  Scarcity of water supply has given rise to a lucrative opportunity to the tanker mafia. This mafia flourishes incahoots with the local bureaucracy and the politicians, charging as much as Rs5000 for 3000 gallons. Interestingly, the majority of the heavy water tankers which ply on Karachi roads have their registration of some remote town in Pakistan. That means they use the city roads, but they do not contribute to the road tax or vehicle registration tax to the city.

Thirdly, the city has a lack of public transport systems. Public transport availability declined from the last few years from 22 000 busses and mini-buses to 8000 only. The scarcity of public transport has let the proliferation of 50,000 Qingqi and around 1.5million motorbikes. The provincial government is working on the Green Line Bus service, but it is behind schedule and it may not be able to cater to the huge demands of the commuters. There has also been a lot of talk by different governments for many years to revive the Karachi Circular Railway. Now this dream may be actualised with the magic that is CPEC.

The scarcity of public amenities as has created window for a corrupt bureaucracy, politicians and the private sector mafia. Is this civic crime by design or is it the inefficiency of our rulers who abdicate from their duties. Whatever the case, in the absence of realistic population figures, no objective planning and allocation of resources will be possible.

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com.  He is a freelance journalist and author

Published in Daily Times, January 6^th 2018.