Relentless rain continues to dampen business

As Karachi continues to drown in misery inflicted by a record-breaking spell of monsoon rainfall, so do its businessmen, fearing significant financial losses with torrential rain hampering trade activities for the past few days.  

Their ordeal worsened on Thursday when over 90 per cent of the metropolis' markets had to be kept shut, keeping in view the weather conditions and the ensuing flood-like situation. Still, rainwater inundated most shops and warehouses and businessmen, confined to their houses, stood by helplessly as their goods and properties were destroyed. 

An exasperated All Karachi Tajir Ittehad president Atiq Meer lambasted the government over its failure to salvage the city from the storms.

"Alleys and streets in several markets resemble lakes, and despite the imposition of an emergency, neither the government, nor the [local] administration is doing anything [to alleviate the situation]," he decried. "There is no [proper] drainage system to remove the water inundating business centres and thoroughfares."   

He said that water was standing at around two to three feet in most business and trade hubs, including those in old city areas, Jodia Bazaar and many cloth markets.

And so, the loss of the businessmen has been two-fold over the past few rainy days.

Where, on one hand, the closure of markets and shops brought income generation to a halt, rainwater, contaminated with sewage water, on the other hand, continued to sully valuables in shops and warehouses, rendering them useless. 

According to former Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry president and prominent businessman Siraj Qasim Teli, the situation emerging out of the downpour has laid bare the appalling state of the city's infrastructure. 

Maintaining that the Sindh government did not have the capacity to improve the metropolis' infrastructure, he said, "Keeping in view the ground reality, the restoration of the infrastructure should be outsourced."

Elaborating further, he demanded that the federal and the provincial governments assign the task of restoring Karachi's infrastructure to the National Disaster Management Authority and Frontier Works Organisation, under the army's supervision - a demand he has been making for the past few weeks.

"Karachi will be brought to the verge of destruction if matters continue to be the way they have been for the past 20 years to 25 years," he forewarned. 

Calling for initiating the restoration work from underdeveloped areas like Surjani Town - one of the localities worst-hit by monsoon rains this year - Teli urged local industrialists and businessmen to mount pressure on the authorities for outsourcing the port city's overhaul.