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FEBRUARY
2008
ISSUES:
The
white elephant that is the Lyari Expressway
In
what was widely seen as an election campaign gimmick, President Pervez
Musharraf inaugurated the southbound carriageway of the Lyari Expressway
on Monday. The inauguration performed from the safety of the Governor’s
House was designed to provide an occasion for the MQM-controlled city
government to add one more feather to its cap – one more project in
its long list of ‘achievements.’
It is a different matter that for all practical purposes the expressway
is still incomplete. Worse still, it is disgracefully behind schedule.
The benefits it will bestow on the citizens of Karachi will only be
known when it becomes operational.
President Musharraf had laid the foundation stone of this project in May
2002, and the National Highway Authority that was responsible for it had
promised to complete the expressway in 30 months – that is by Nov
2004. Even now, only one section of the expressway (from Sohrab Goth to
Mauripur) has been partially completed – work on 16 flyovers and four
intersections still goes on.
Costing a fabulous Rs8.2 billion, the expressway will supposedly ease
traffic congestion in the city by providing a signal-free corridor for
light traffic going from Sohrab Goth to Mauripur and then on to the KPT,
Merewether Tower and Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road. Given the absence of a
holistic approach to town planning and traffic engineering, one cannot
be sure whether the expressway will really “empty the roads of Karachi
of the traffic jams that have become a permanent feature of the city,”
as the director of the Lyari Expressway Project had boasted to me when I
had visited LEP about two years ago.
Over this period many other flyovers, underpasses and signal-free
corridors have been completed in the city only to show that small
stretches offer a free flow of traffic, which invariably ends in a
bottleneck at the exit point. Will it be the same with the Lyari
Expressway? Heavy traffic will in any case use the Northern Bypass,
which entails a distance nearly thrice as much as the 16.5km expressway.
The more pertinent question that will be asked is whether the Rs8.2bn
spent on the expressway was worth it. There are experts who believe that
better results could have been achieved by skilful traffic management
and at a phenomenally lower cost.
What is disturbing is that enough planning did not go into the
construction of the expressway. For instance, no environmental impact
assessment was undertaken. This was admitted by the revenue department
whose records note: “No such assessment undertaken but it is certain
that the natural environment along this stretch of the Lyari River will
improve substantially after the construction of the expressway.” Nor
was any survey conducted to assess how land use will change after this
massive project becomes operational.
Human cost
The human cost of the Lyari Expressway has been incalculable. Nearly
24,000 families have been displaced — often quite brusquely — and
ostensibly settled in three sites at a cost of Rs5bn. While inaugurating
the project President Musharraf remarked that as a schoolboy he had seen
people living in shanty towns in the Lyari riverbed and he was happy
that they had been shifted to townships where basic amenities such as
schools, playgrounds, parks and other facilities are available.
That is true but there is another side of the picture as well. The three
sites — Taiser Town, Hawkesbay and Baldia — are far removed from the
city centre and transport is not readily available at all hours. Many of
the affected people lost their jobs simply because they could not
commute to work early in the morning.
Besides, the amount paid to those uprooted (Rs50,000 per family) was not
enough to build a roof above their heads. Many complained of lack of
amenities such as water supply and health facilities. Some never
received the compensation that had been promised while it was claimed
that some who never lived in the Lyari River area managed to get a plot,
thanks to their ‘connections.’ That all has not been hunky-dory for
the evictees in their new homes is evident from the fact that the land
mafia has been quick to move into these townships. Why would anyone well
settled in a place with no problems wish to sell off his plot?
(By
Zubeida Mustafa, Dawn-17, 14/02/2008)
Beach
development project seen as monumental disaster
The
multi-billion dollar Waterfront Development Project proposed on the
beaches of Hawkesbay and Sandspit will be a “monumental disaster” if
the economic, social, human, environmental and urban growth needs of
Karachi are not taken into consideration, said Arif Belgaumi, a noted
town planner and principal architect, Ahed Associates.
“If the goal is to bring in FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] at any
cost without considering the needs of the city of Karachi, then a
project like this will be a monumental disaster, for which the country
and the city will pay for generations,” he said while talking to The
News. However, Belgaumi agreed that attracting FDI, while ensuring the
environmental and social needs of the city, is desirable.
“It is possible — indeed desirable and responsible — to attract
FDI for targeted projects that fulfill the identified needs of the
community and, therefore, sustains the larger economy through thoughtful
and responsible development. The needs of the goths and other
communities should be considered while formulating the criteria for any
such development,” he said.
The plan – that is, the Karachi Strategic Development Plan 2020 (KSDP
2020) — calls for the adoption of the provisions of the Karachi
Coastal Recreation Development Plan 1990-2000 that identifies the nature
of and development on the coast, areas to be used for recreation and the
sensitive ecological areas marked for protection and conservation.
The plan explicitly says: “The coastal sea and its back-water and
creeks provide a source of livelihood to fishing communities who live on
the coast. The fisherman must enjoy free access to their traditional
grounds in the sea, backwaters and creeks. For any development to be
sustainable and acceptable, the historical rights of the communities to
the sea and the coastal village land they occupy ought to be respected.”
However, in complete violation of the above-mentioned objectives, the
population living on Karachi’s coastal areas is threatened, and as
many as 200,000 people inhabiting the goths in Hawkesbay/Sandspit alone
are likely to be uprooted. If this happens, free access to the sea will
be nothing more than a far-fetched for the fisherfolk.
This is in spite of the fact that the KSDP 2020 says: “The fishing
community settled in coastal villages should not be forced to abandon
their lands or source of livelihood. The local villages should not be
dispossessed and their village lands not acquired by the government.”
Mubarak Baloch, Nazim Union Council (UC) 8 (Keamari town), is concerned
that thousands of Baloch and Sindhi inhabitants of the coastal villages
of Karachi — most of them fishermen — will be uprooted from their
ancestral lands because of the Waterfront Development Project.
“The government is bent on evicting the hut owners at the beaches
because it is not ready to accept lease money and it seems that the poor
people living in goths will also be evicted when the project
materialises,” he said.
Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, during his term in office, cried
hoarse that the present government is attracting FDI in a big way.
However, independent economists portray a different picture. For
instance, Kaiser Bengali, a respected independent economist has been
quoted to have said in an interview with The News on Sunday (TNS):
“… The investment (FDI) has been in terms of telecommunication,
mobile phones and food. All of these companies earn their profits in
rupees but remit their profit in dollars. So there is dollar outflow in
terms of profit remittance against which there is no dollar inflow. We
have created a liability without creating a countervailing asset.”
“In 1999, the total profit remittance outflow, which in monetary
language is called reverse remittance, was $97 million a year. Today it
is close to a billion dollars and rising,” he explained.
Belgaumi agrees with this: “Global capital is certainly looking for a
home and it is imperative that Pakistan should attract it with
investment opportunities. At the moment, I would have to say that global
capital is not affecting Pakistan significantly.”
(By
Shahid Husain, The News, 03/02/2008)
Pakistan:
Our urban nightmare
On
23 May 2007 the world reached a seemingly invisible but momentous
milestone. For the first time in history the world's urban population
outnumbered the rural one. More than half it's human population, 3.3
billion people, are living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to
swell to almost 5 billion. Many of the new urbanites will be poor. Their
future, the future of our cities, the future of humanity itself, all
depend very much on decisions made now in preparation for this growth.
Towns and town creation plays an important role to impose control over
the country. It also directs the activities of urban residents towards
the larger purpose of establishing an administrative network and help
attain national prosperity. Unfortunately powerful political and
economic interests shape urban policies to line their pockets while the
middle and working classes pay the bills for their enormous, perpetually
undelivered projects and programs. No wonder city youth find imagined
solace in street crimes as their minds languish in a sense of
hopelessness.
There is a growing divide between the urban and rural economy. Incomes
in the cities has greatly increased for some, whereas rural residents
who make up a huge section of the population have only barely felt the
effects. This economic differential leads to large scale resentment and
a sense of depriviation. The widening divide in turn drives millions
into the cities, creating slums filled with poor, dislocated people. To
slow down this stampede, we have to bring jobs to the countryside.
Investors should be encouraged to build factories away from the
presently focused main cities and help boost the local cottage industry.
The course of sustainable development at the local and regional levels
requires the pursuit of economic policies that enrich the qualitative
aspects of our social and political lives and do not add new burdens to
the carrying capacity of our locale.
Population shifts or migrants to and from world urban areas have
traditionally been a tell-tale sign of many issues. People here move for
many different reasons; assumed advantages, such as employment,
educational and economic opportunities; forced movement to flee
environmental crises, persecution and violence at the hands of of the
feudal influentials.
In Pakistan what is happening today is the migration of farmers,
peasants and landless rural families to cities that do not have
sufficient means to absorb the newcomers productively. The result has
been an explosive growth of slums with hungry miserable people without
access to even the basic neccessities of life. Here these souls discover
their utopia to be a concrete jungle with sprawling slums, massive
traffic jams, chronic unemployment, no education/health care, almost no
electrical/water services, less recreational facilities and
sky-rocketing food costs.
This urban nightmare is almost impossible to escape as it ensnarls
millions. People migrate, more are born into it through no fault of
their own; to live and die in it, unable to escape its grip, thanks to
the numerous barriers purposefully placed by the oblivious system. With
this urban explosion, the feeble obsolete infrastructure already in it's
death throes, the country's housing situation is aggravating with each
passing day. Our bourgeoning population growth at almost 3 percent and
strong inward migration (rural-urban migration) trends are adding to the
woes. This is compounded by the decreasing average household size in our
urban centers. It therefore translates to more houses for a small number
of people. There are nearly 19 million houses countrywide for a
population of 160 million whereas the required number of housing units
is about 26 million. We have a shortfall of nearly 7 million houses. The
number is huge if seen against the backdrop of housing units being built
annually. The bulk of existing 19 million houses consists of 67 percent
rural houses, while kuccha and semi pukka houses account for about 40
percent of total housing units. The room density for India and Pakistan
is nearly 3.5 persons per room while it is 1.3, 1.1 and 0.5 in the case
of Turkey, China and USA respectively. At present the urban housing
demand stands at 8 percent per annum.
The rural-urban migration may be a global phenomenon but developing
countries like Pakistan with already over burdened urban cities, seem
reeling under the endless deluge. Karachi, that utopian beacon for all,
is attracting more than 250,000 to 300,000 people annually. This mass
migration adds to the innumerable problems of this city ominously
creaking at the seams.
Migrants inhabit squatter settlements or shanty towns called katchi
abadis. Karachi has 539 katchi abadis and a staggering 49 percent of the
city population lives there. Presently 30,000 housing units are being
constructed, but a fraction of the gigantic demand. Pakistan's social
and human indicators too make for very dismal reading. In the context of
development, the government is up against a crisis that has three
features: wide-spread poverty, rapid and unplanned urbanisation, and
rapid erosion of the natural resource base. Over two-thirds of
Pakistan's adult population is illiterate and there are 740,000 child
deaths each year, half of them linked to malnutrition. This is one of
the highest infant mortality rates in the world.
Pakistan
is also experiencing one of the fastest rates of urbanisation in the
developing world, which may result in the urban population exceeding the
rural by the turn of the century. At the same time, the population
growth rate, is the highest in South Asia. According to long-term UN
projections, Pakistan will emerge as the third most populous country in
the world by the year 2050. Already, 36 million people live in absolute
poverty. More than half of the cultivable land in the holdings of 50
acres and above is in the hands of big landlords, thereby encouraging
the rich-poor divide to further widen. Even after six decades of
independence, Pakistan is essentially a feudal society.
Ultimately, collapse always results in the 'abandonment' of urban
centers, but that abandonment can take many forms. Sometimes, it means
just what the word implies-people move out of the cities. Other times,
it means that everyone crowds into the cities, hoping to escape the
poverty of the countryside, only to die in an orgy of violence, famine
and disease. A lack of imagination, rather than lack of skills, is a far
more critical distinction between survivors and victims.
To learn to make our cities livable we will have to break some
longstanding chronic habits. The hardest habit to break is the 'syndrome
of tragedy', that brooding feeling, like we are terminal patients in
almost all walks of life. There is absolutely no dearth of 'specialists'
out to prove change is not possible. What has to be explained to them is
that it takes the same energy to say why something cannot be done as to
figure out how to do it, provided a honest working will is there. We
long for a spiritually satisfying niche, a human habitat that cooperates
with our biological nature, a community rich with multifarious
interactions. Communities are living, growing organisms that need
constant internal regulation and whose health should be based upon
happiness alone. 'No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of
which the far greater part are poor and miserable'. Adam Smith made that
statement back in the 18th century but it holds true for the Pakistan of
today. Today our struggling cities, like almost everything else, are
portrayed as evolutionary dead ends, with no future to contemplate. Our
vision should be less a dream, an end-point, or an unrealizable utopian
existence, out there somewhere in the future; it should instead be an
unending process to promote social justice and economic well-being among
all Pakistanis. We should work towards peace with nature and that
enveloping ecosystem which sustains life on our little planet and is the
true source of our natural capital.
It is time to raise our voices in opposition to the theft of our
children's future, the degradation of our lives, the jeopardizing of our
individual and collective health and well being, above all the pollution
of our politics. It is time to bring back the people into the political
process and breathe new life into an ancient dream and a modern
necessity: popular and good governance. It is time to construct a future
where people and nature matter, where wealth is based on the things that
count rather than merely the things that can be counted. It is time to
find the means for putting our urban house in order by planting seeds
that will establish new roots for our urban community ; enliven and
enrich the nourishing soil on which we depend for human life itself.
In the consumer culture we inhabit that bombards us with messages to buy
beyond our budgets and live beyond our means, we know we can be more
happy and content if we could but get off the habit of buying too much
and consuming thoughtlessly. Hiding our unhappiness by frolicking in
this consumer paradise for some, we who can, eat too much, spend too
much, and waste too much time on things that do not matter. Along the
way, we contribute to the plunder of nature's depletable capital and the
theft of our children's future.
Just as our forebears banded together to break from the yoke of
colonialism, Pakistan offers itself as the gathering point of a new
generation of democratic rebels intent on inaugurating that process to
social justice and peace with nature. A new millennium is about to begin
and destiny beckons us again to a new revolution of the heart, hand and
mind.
(By
Mir Adnan Aziz, The News, 21/01/2008)
Another
fire tragedy
FIRES in Karachi seem to be spiralling out of control, both in terms of
their intensity and frequency of occurrence. Tragedy struck once again
last Wednesday when a fire in Gadap Town engulfed 11 shanty dwellings,
killing three young sisters and severely injuring their mother who tried
to rescue them. On the same day, a fire broke out in Manzoor Colony,
destroying more than 100 homes and injuring five people. So far the
cause of the fires is not known, although in the first case, police have
pointed out that the girls’ mother had lit wood to boil water.
Unfortunately, although many homes in slum dwellings may not be as prone
to short circuits as buildings and shopping plazas many are constructed
of combustible material including cardboard cartons, wood and thatch.
This means that fire in one dwelling can easily spread to other homes,
especially in congested surroundings. An inadequate water supply in such
areas means that there is no quick way of putting out the fire which
then engulfs everything in its path. Given the dearth of proper and
adequate housing, it is no surprise that shanty towns are a regular city
feature. But it is a pity that there is no one to inform or direct the
people when it comes to safety precautions. For instance, smoking inside
huts constructed of inflammable material or lighting open fires in the
vicinity of the latter should be highlighted as being a dangerous
activity by town authorities. Fire blankets and extinguishers may be
expensive propositions in poverty-stricken shanty towns but they are a
necessity, as is the accessibility to emergency numbers for the fire
brigade. Local schools and madressahs, too, should educate children on
fire risks and carry out regular drills. Meanwhile research is needed on
inexpensive fire-resistance building material that can at least minimise
the possibility of a blaze in such dwellings.
(Dawn-16/02/2008)
Sepa
report says Indus water highly polluted
Water in the Indus and various lakes and canals being fed by it is
highly polluted and poses serious threats to human health as well as to
the environment and biodiversity, says a report.
The Rs11 million one-year (2004-2005) report on “Water quality
monitoring programme in Sindh” conducted by the Sindh Environmental
Protection Agency (Sepa) was sponsored by the National Drainage
Authority and was launched at a function. Experts speaking at the launch
ceremony stressed that many laws, including the specific environmental
protection legislations, existed only on paper. They added that there
were two reasons why the laws were not implemented: one, a dearth of
technically qualified people; two, clout wielded by polluters.
Presenting the results, S.M. Yahya of Sepa said water sampling was
carried out at 21 spots, including Guddu, Sukkur, Dadu, Kotri and
Sujawal barrages; near Latifabad (Hyderabad) and the Danistar canal; and
the Hamal, Manchhar, Keenjhar and Haleji lakes and the K.B. Feeder,
Phulali, Pinyari canals, etc. He said the results revealed that the
pollution load was many times more than the safe limits prescribed by
the World Health Organization, the European Union, etc and coliform that
should not be present in water at all was present at all places -- and
measured more than 1,000 per 100 millilitres at certain places.
He said the study showed that BOD -- biological oxygen demand which is
said to be a water quality indicator and stands for the biodegradability
of organic matter dissolved or suspended in water –ranged between 51.2
mg/l near the Danistar canal and 25.5 mg/l at the Guddu Barrage; from
117.2mg/l at the Manchhar lake to 60 mg/l at the Keenjhar lake.
BOD should be less than
6.5 mg/l.
The official said that COD -- chemical oxygen demand which is a measure
of pollution load, (industrial and sewage wastewater) – ranged between
121 mg/l at the Danistar canal and 63.6 mg/l at the Guddu Barrage.
COD
should be less than 5 mg/l.
He said coliform, which is commonly associated with faeces of humans and
animals and has long been recognized as a suitable microbial indicator
of drinking water quality, ranged from 932 per 100 ml at Dadu barrage to
349 per 100 ml at Sujawal barrage; and from 1,046 per 100 ml at Hamal
lake to 851 per 100 ml at Haleji lake and up to 1,100 in Pinyari
canal.Coliform should not be present in water bodies at all.
Sindh Caretaker Environment Minister Jam Karam Ali said the study
results portrayed a grim picture of the situation. However, he said he
hoped Sepa would soon overcome it and improve the situation.He said
water was essential for life and it was the present generation’s
responsibility to leave good quality water for future generations.
Sindh Environment Secretary Mir Hussein Ali said that owing to the
scarcity of technically qualified men the implementation of laws had
been far from ideal, but now the Sindh Public Service Commission had
been approached to get qualified men recruited after which the situation
would improve.
He said pollution in water was increasing, which posed a serious threat
to human health as well as to the environment. He said Manchhar lake,
one of the largest fresh-water lakes in Asia, had almost been destroyed
while another important lake, Keenjhar, was degrading at a fast pace.
Dr Ghulam Akber of the World Wide Fund for Nature said that the
population was increasing at a rapid pace and every year 2.9 million
people were added which put additional pressure on the fast depleting
water resources. He said that arsenic – a deadly substance -- was
found in at least eight cities across the country. He said although he
was a supporter of eco-tourism, the ill-planned and unchecked tourism
was ruining Keenjhar Lake – a Ramsar Site, the highest status a
wetland could have internationally from the conservation point of view
– where vehicles were washed and untreated sewage from tourist
facilities went into the lake. He said billions of rupees were being
spent on health because of waterborne diseases. He said fish in the
lakes had also decreased because of water pollution and the number of
migratory birds which came from colder central Asian regions to spend
their winters at local wetlands had also gone down on account of
pollution as well as less fish stock in the lakes. Hashim Leghari of the
Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority said the National Environmental
Quality Standards were very liberal than the standards prescribed by the
WHO, EU or other international agencies and stressed that the NEQS be
reviewed and be made stringent.
Sepa director-general Abdul Malik Ghauri also spoke.
(Daily
Dawn, 17/02/2008)
Devolution
gives too much power to local govts: Arif Hasan
Discussing
the major changes that have shaped Pakistan since independence, renowned
architect and urban planner Arif Hasan criticised President Musharraf’s
devolution of power plan, initiated in 2001, saying that it had largely
failed and had handed power back to the old elites. He was speaking at a
lecture titled ‘Urbanisation, politics, public and national interests,’
held at the office of an NGO.
“Civil society organisations – in their romanticism – had opted
for this,” he said, referring to the devolution plan in his highly
informative speech, which was punctuated with statistics and interesting
personal anecdotes. “But I had my reservations.” He claimed the
devolution of power initiative had given too much money and power to the
district governments, with no proper checks in place from the central
bureaucracy. “The result is the citizen has to go grovelling to the
nazim to get his job done.”
Mr Hasan said one of the few good things witnessed during the Ziaul Haq
era was the entry of traders and entrepreneurs at the level of local
politics, whereas today power was back in the hands of the feudals and
other traditional wielders of authority.
Along with devolution, the six other major factors that he reckoned had
shaped the country since partition were the constitution of
pre-partition society, the migration from India, Ayub Khan’s ‘Green
Revolution,’ urbanization, the Zia era and globalization.
Mr Hasan intricately wove all the factors together and ably described
their inter-connectedness, which was responsible for the present chaos.
He said at the time of partition, the major identifier in society was
caste affiliation, while society was managed by panchayats, though this
system was not uniform,
Describing the massive migration from India at partition, he quoted a
study which says that in the early 1950s, 48 per cent of the urban
population in Pakistan said that they had come from India. “This
caused huge urbanization, whereby the population in some cities
increased by 100 per cent. The Hindu traders left while poor, rural
Muslims came in. However in the NWFP and Balochistan, de-urbanization
was witnessed as there was no one to replace the Hindu middle class,”
said Arif Hasan.
“The old relationship between the caste and the mohalla disappeared
and the old values were replaced by a fiercely upwardly mobile culture.
We moved from being a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual
society into a uni-religious one trying to become uni-lingual,” he
said.
The Green Revolution, which was initiated in the late ’50s but it took
off and experienced incredible growth in the ’60s, changed rural
society, he said. “Before this, the feudal order financed agriculture
and also worked with the establishment. With the Green Revolution, new
people came into the scenario, such as salesmen, mechanics, etc. Small
farms were bought up by larger farmers. This changed the position of the
feudals, as the banks and informal sector became the financiers. Cash
changed everything. However, the feudals continued to control the
politics of the country,” observed Mr Hasan. He said the old system
functioned on the basis of clan and tribal affiliations; but the
introduction of cash weakened this system. The panchayat and jirga were
challenged for the first time.
“Industrialisation in the Ayub era also increased urbanization.
Subsistence fishing was replaced by commercial fishing; traditional
fishermen had to take loans to keep up. The same happened in the carpet
industry. We moved towards a capitalist system without the proper
infrastructure,” he added. He said that though there was currently a
major construction boom in the country, there was not enough qualified
manpower, such as surveyors or equipment operators, to fill these jobs.
“The institutes to train these people do not exist. They have nearly
all learnt through the shagirdi system; the polytechnics have no money
and have obsolete equipment. We have abandoned middle level education,
such as technical colleges. Thus, our universities are castles built on
sand,” he said.
Changing
values
Arif Hasan said that the increase in the number of working women was
fuelling immense social change, altering the attitudes of how the
relationship between men and women was viewed. He cited a recent survey,
which studied the way young couples use public spaces as rendezvous, and
said that out of 100 couples surveyed, only 28 were married. “There is
a need for new societal values; most people are quite modern but fear
tradition,” he said.
Coming to the policies of the Zia era and their repercussions today, he
said these policies consolidated the religious establishment. Apart from
the growing presence of religion in the public sphere, he said Gen Zia’s
policies “stifled the universities and killed off the youths as
extra-curricula activities were banned. The custodians of the religious
establishment became the guardians of morality.” This was also the
time, he said, when the westernised elite stepped out of public life and
built their own world, which resulted in ghettoisation. “People turned
to ethnic and clan organisations” due to the political vacuum, he
added. “The Zia era coincided with the period of urban consolidation
in Pakistan.”
As for globalization, he said we had failed to capitalize on the
phenomenon and resultantly, Pakistan had turned into an under-developed
country from once being a mid-level developing country.
The lecture was organised by the People’s Resistance and the Green
Economics and Globalisation Initiative in the Shirkat Gah’s office.
(By
Qasim A. Moini, Dawn, 04/02/2008)
Privatisation
of waste management department opposed
The
municipal workers of all the 18 towns of the city have opposed the City
District Government Karachi’s (CDGK) plan to privatise the municipal
waste management department and say that it might affect more than 0.1
million families affiliated with this work directly or indirectly.
The CDGK has signed a 20-year agreement with a Chinese company according
to which the CDGK will have to pay $20 per ton daily to the company for
lifting garbage and urban waste. This, however, will adversely affect
hundreds of sanitary workers, supervisors, drivers and other people, who
have been affiliated with this job, revealed Fareed Awan, general
secretary Municipal Workers Trade Union Alliance, a body of 17 trade
unions, formed recently.
Awan told The News that the CDGK will collect fees from residences as
per its area. For instance, a residence of 60—80 square yards will
have to pay Rs100 per month while, 1,000-square yard houses will have to
pay Rs1,000 for their garbage disposal.
Besides sanitary workers and drivers, male and female scavengers
receiving a monthly stipend for collecting garbage will also be deprived
of their jobs. The Alliance leader said that 11,000 workers are directly
affiliated with the municipal administrations of 18 towns, while 5,500
scavenger boys collect items from garbage dumping sites in different
areas for recycling. Around 4,000 other workers collect domestic waste
on a daily basis and receive a monthly income from each house. Regarding
the total generation of waste from the city, he said that the figures
are contradictory as corruption exists from top to bottom in this
regard. Earlier, he said, it was announced that the city generates 5,000
tons of waste daily and now it is being said that it is 12,000 tons of
waste a day. Furthermore, the reports add that the CDGK has the
resources to collect and dump 60 per cent of urban waste daily. The
question is, where does the remaining 40 per cent go?
Awan further highlighted the failures made earlier in this regard while
pointing out that the defunct Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) and
now the CDGK has been making experiments to resolve the problem of solid
waste management. He recalls that the defunct KMC administration
launched a special train to remove garbage daily but failed. He said
that since there is so much corruption involved, the bureaucracy is not
keen on solving the problem. They earn more by the manipulation of
funds.
Awan added that the agreement with the Chinese company will deprive
hundreds of families of their jobs, because the role of the already
working employees is yet to be clarified. Awan appealed to the political
parties and civil society organisations to take notice of this
agreement, which can be disastrous for many families, depending on their
work. He concluded saying that the municipal workers should have been
taken into confidence about such a move, which is linked to their
families’ fate.
(The
News-20, 10/02/2008)
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