What is needed is a unified chain of command and sincerity of purpose.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Syed Mustafa Kamal’s article of March 7 titled “Karachi’s challenge”. While there is a clear shift of population in Pakistan from rural to urban areas, our planners do not seem to take important factors such as health, education and availability of fresh drinking water into consideration while making plans. Karachi is the largest and most populous city of Pakistan and hundreds of thousands of people come to this city every year in the hope of getting jobs and earning a livelihood for their families.
While everyone is welcome, most people end up living in slums because of limited resources and civic and housing facilities. This has also resulted in an increase in crimes such as snatching of mobile phones and robberies. The healthcare facilities in the city have always been in shambles, with government hospitals in a particularly deplorable condition.
The writer did a lot for the city during his tenure as nazim but the system is still inefficient and riddled with bureaucratic inertia. For instance, several different agencies have jurisdiction on various sections of the city and this makes planning a nightmare.
What is needed is a unified chain of command and sincerity of purpose. I can only wish that the writer is once again able to become nazim of the metropolis and make it a vibrant, progressive and modern city.
Nasir Jamal
Published in The Express Tribune, March 8th, 2011.
