What about KTP?

Just up to 75 millimetres of rain, and parts of Karachi flooded like a river. The rain started after 8pm on Saturday and continued for around an hour and half, turning things across the city topsy-turvy. Unexpected though the rain was, the civic misery it brought was not unexpected, given the neglect the metropolis has been inflicted upon over the years by the irresponsible, incapable and corrupt authorities responsible for its municipal development and upkeep.

The civic system, as usual, collapsed in the wake of the rain. Roads and streets at places in the city came under water. Shara-e-Faisal, the city’s main artery, turned into a swimming pool for motor vehicles. Flooded with water, all the underpasses were closed for traffic, causing a traffic mess across the length and breadth of the city. Motorists and pedestrians remained stuck on the roads for hours after midnight. Traffic cops were hardly found anywhere in the city nor were any rescue authorities. Even though the amount of rain that fell was absorbable, the drainage system was overwhelmed as it was already choked at places. Many of the rainwater drains have ceased to exist as required for constructing an underpass or a flyover or erecting an illegal structure. Power supply to parts of the city was disrupted, as is always the case during rains.

Karachi’s inundation was not an unusual sight. So has been the case for the past many years, the worst of which had come in August 2020 – something that had prompted the then PTI-led federal government and the PPP-led Sindh government to come up with a Rs1.1 trillion Karachi Transformation Plan (KTP), envisaging infrastructure overhaul to rid the city of its long-persisting civic woes. While the two governments worked to keep the plan alive for a year or so thereafter, there is no news of late on what happened to the much-trumpeted pledge to transform Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2024.

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