Daily Times

Normal rainfall in Karachi in the month of August is 68 millimetres. This year it has recorded 587.5 millimetres according to Meteorological Department. In one day the city received more than 23 centimetres of rain, the highest on record in a single day.

Karachi has been hit by natural disasters before, yet the effects of the disaster this time have been far more serious and widespread. The scale of disaster is much greater this time and the unprecedented spell of rain worsened the situation. The city received the heaviest rainfall in a single day in 53 years. Roads were inundated with water and, in many areas, houses were flooded as well. Power supply and mobile signals were disrupted for days due to damage to infrastructure.The torrential rains that have wreaked havoc across Karachi have also exposed various political and social fault lines in the country’s biggest city. Streets and homes were flooded with sewage water in Karachi, where the drainage and sewage systems are outdated. There was heaps of garbage in the form of dead tree branches, broken crates, plastic bags, paper and cardboard, etc. in the middle of the main road, on the rather broad dividers. And where there is less trash there are the fruit and vegetable carts. It’s not only the slums and middle-class neighbourhoods that have suffered; the more prosperous areas too have seen the same level of misery. There has been a complete collapse of the civic infrastructure.

Three days of monsoon rains have killed at least 90 people and damaged at least a thousand homes across Pakistan, but media’s attention was on Karachi and even today only Karachi is being discussed.The PPPhas been blamed for many things that have gone wrong in the province and particularly in Karachi. A major problem is the gap between perception and reality where the city is concerned. Most of the experts on electronic and social media have never been to Karachi.

There is a need to see Karachi’s problems beyond the current disaster caused by urban flooding:Parts of Karachi are owned by the federal government. A large part of the city does not come under municipal jurisdiction. Almost a third of it falls under the cantonment boards and the Defence Housing Authority. In addition, local and provincial governments have set up parallel structures of service delivery, like trash pickup, diluting resources. There are several authorities controlling different parts of the city. The administrative disarray has become more pronounced with each spell of rain.

No one knows exactly how many people live in the city. With the constant inflow of economic migrants, the city’s population increases every year. People from different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities are settled here. With all its chaos and mayhem, it is the most vibrant city in the country.Karachi has faced problems of overcrowding and unplanned development since the country’s independence. A very large majority of its population lives in informal settlements in poorly designed housing with inadequate services. Most of the open spaces, including parks that could have acted as natural filtration and drainage basins, have been encroached, aggravating flooding.The drains are also used as solid waste dumping grounds that not only choke their passage but have reduced their depth since their de-silting and cleaning is hardly carried out.

The provincial government should have a monitoring body to supervise the civic agencies performance once the new Mayor of the city takes charge. Whether its drainage problems, encroachments, infrastructure, or public transport issues, Sindh government must lead from front

Karachi has no mass transit system in place, which causes immense trouble for commuters every day. Various governments in the past had promise to initiate grand plans to establish mass transit system in the city, but none has practically seen the light of the day. Way back during Benazir Bhutto’s government, a Canadian company was all set to build the Karachi mass transit but when PML-N came to power it scrapped it. The plan of Karachi Mass Transit Corridors is the official mass transit master plan notified by the Government of Pakistan in 1995. The plan was based on Karachi Mass Transit Study in 1990 in which elevated and at-grade bus corridors were proposed. Bus corridors were designed so that they can be converted to Light Rail Transit System. In response to the request of the Government of Pakistan in 2010, the Japan International Cooperation Agency dispatched an investment Climate Advisor to the Board of Investment. Successive federal governments have completely ignored infrastructure development in a city which is the country’s economic lifeline.

The constant political battle between the federal government and the province will make things more difficult. The city government in the hands of the MQM, the provincial government of PPP and the PTI at the centre. For a long-term solution, there is a need for greater understanding of the city’s political and social dynamics.It is indeed a good sign that the prime minister has offered to work with the provincial government to help pull out the city from the crisis. Recently federal and Sindh governments reached a consensus for the development of Karachi and identified six areas for collaboration. It was decided that all bottlenecks in the long-standing projects such as Karachi Circular Railway, K-IV water project and Greater Karachi Sewerage Project S-III would be removed through mutual consultations. The projects list will be shortlisted and it would be decided which projects are to be led by the Sindh government and which projects are the responsibility of the federal government, financial and legislative matters of the projects would also be finalised within the given time.

Karachi’s development is critical to the country’s economic growth. Devolution of power is very important. The provincial government should have a monitoring body to supervise the civic agencies performance once the new Mayor of the city takes charge.Whether its drainage problems, encroachments, infrastructure, or public transport issues, Sindh government must lead from front, without expecting a single vote from Karachi. Due to the effect of global warming on the hydrological cycle, continued intensification of monsoons in the coming years will be seen.

In short all roads lead to you Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for the betterment of Karachi. Short list more people like Murtaza Wahab, who is working on the ground day and night and always available to update people on social and electronic media. You have had a team of dedicated young women like Maleeha Manzoor, Ariba Jalbani, and Hina Mehr Nadeem, who have been highlighting the work done in the last ten years or so, especially in the health and education sector. They just need your recognition not reward.

It’s NOW or NEVER.

The writer is a traveller and freelance writer based in UK. He has previously written for @the_nation @Dawn_com @DunyaNews @TheAsians He can be contacted on Twitter @SyedIHusain