Safety in a burning city

The Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) has finally taken what can only be seen as a reactive stand against structural inadequacies in the fire safety domain by introducing stricter fire safety laws. While mandatory requirements are better late than never, their absence before the Gul Plaza tragedy points towards a conspicuous lack of proactive urban planning. Fire safety is a fundamental city infrastructure. That it took a catastrophic event to trigger these reforms — formally notified as the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations (Amendment) 2026 — highlights a governance model that keeps prioritising crisis management over care.

The new rules are revisions to an existing code that clearly failed. The amendments introduce critical technical requirements, such as the mandatory submission of certified Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) drawings before construction permits are issued. Furthermore, no completion certificates will now be granted without a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from both the Civil Defence Department and the Fire Brigade.

These reforms will be as useless as their predecessors if not backed by uncompromising enforcement. Moreover, the Sindh government recently approved the 'resumption' of annual safety inspections. This is a significant admission of negligence. If these audits were simply allowed to stop in the past, what institutional safeguards now exist to prevent their discontinuation again?

Even with these changes, the reforms largely focus on basic hardware. Requiring one fire extinguisher per shop rather than maintaining an integrated life safety ecosystem found internationally should merely be the beginning of several reforms. There is also the glaring issue of water scarcity. The SBCA now mandates dedicated underground and overhead water tanks exclusively for firefighting. However, in a city where citizens struggle for basic water access, these tanks are destined to be dry monuments. For these reforms to hold substantial meaning, the government must first fix the structural rot of resource management.