Karachi in focus

Karachi has once again come under the much-needed national focus. The neglected financial capital of the country has turned out to be first destination whose visit was undertaken by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on Wednesday. The Prime Minister dashed to the metropolis just a day after being elected to the country’s top office – something that apparently indicates a sense of urgency to attend to the long-lingering civic problems under an amiable working relationship between the Centre and the Sindh government, led respectively by PML-N and PPP, the two major components of the new ruling coalition.

While bigger and more important political issues, those related to the cabinet formation, are understood to have come under discussion during the meetings that the PM had with the Sindh CM MQM leaders, the announcements made before the media after the meetings during the daylong visit were all related to development projects. Shehbaz said his government would try to get the Karachi Circular Railway project inducted into CPEC. He also assured Centre’s cooperation for completion of a long-delayed drinking water project for Karachi, commonly called K-IV, by 2024, besides asking the Sindh CM to arrange air-conditioned buses for Green Line and Orange Line projects to address transportation problems in the city. The PM also assured swift release of Sindh’s share in NFC Award.

However, this is not the first time that Karachiites have been promised due attention to a host of unresolved issues that have led to Karachi being mocked as Kolachi, Kachrachi, etc. The devastating rains of August 2020 had also forced the Centre, then led by PTI, and the PPP’s Sindh government to join hands and launched the Rs1.1 trillion Karachi Transformation Plan. But with politics at play, the plan largely remained in the doldrums. While this time around, the two governments sound serious, they are required to rise above political interests if they really want to heal Karachi let alone transform it.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2022.

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