• 249 fell victim to targeted killings in seven months

• Politics of ethnicity

• Land, jobs and murders

• Unmanageable urban growth

• Get ready for an urban revolution

• Sanitary staff, improper landfill sites, political intrusions cause lack of Solid Waste Management

As many as 249 people fell victim to targeted killings during the period from Jan 1 to Aug 6 in different parts of the city, police department statistics show. 

People from a wide cross section of society have been targeted in the shootings which show that different forces are pursuing their deadly agendas. 

During the period of over six months, people were targeted for their political affiliations, sectarian beliefs or for the language they speak. There were also cases when people were killed in targeted attacks but their political or sectarian affiliation was not clear. As armed men practically ruled the streets of the city during the specified dates killing people freely, the law-enforcement agencies remained silent spectators while the government remained paralysed and numbed. 

According to a categorisation made in the official data, as many as 72 Pashto-speaking people were killed by unidentified people within the remits of the Sir Syed, Preedy, Site-A, Awami Colony, Risala, Gulberg, Baldia, Model Colony, Landhi, Pirabad, Pak Colony, Memon Goth, Shah Faisal Colony, Sharifabad, Khawaja Ajmiar Nagri, Zaman Town, Sharea Faisal, Baldia, Liaquatabad, Joharabad, Sharea Noorjehan, Korangi Industrial Area, New Karachi, Sachal, Sharafi Goth, Baghdadi, Ibrahim Hyderi, PIB Colony, Korangi, Iqbal Market, Quaidabad and Mobina Town police stations. 

The statistics show that nine activists of the Awami National Party were gunned down at different places within the remits of the Korangi, Shah Faisal, Quaidabad, Orangi Town and Korangi Industrial Area police stations. 

Similarly, the data shows that 14 Urdu-speaking people were killed within the remits of the Aziz Bhatti, Shah Faisal Colony, Sharifabad, Surjani Town, Sachal, Garden, Malir City and Orangi Town police stations. 

The data shows that 14 activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement were gunned down in the city during the specified period by unidentified people within the remits of the Nazimabad, Gulbahar, Peerabad, Landhi, Orangi Town, North Nazimabad, Shah Faisal Colony, Sharea Faisal, and Al Falah police stations. 

The data shows that 20 activists of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H) were killed in different parts of the city by unidentified people within the remits of the Saudabad, Awami Colony, Pak Colony, Nazimabad, Model Colony, Gulbahar, Brigade, Bilal Colony, Orangi Town, Shah Faisal Colony and Al Falah police stations. 

Nine people belonging to the Shia school of thought were killed within the remits of the Iqbal Market, New Town, Nazimabad, Rizvia, Pakistan Bazaar and Khwaja Ajmair Nagri police stations. 

The data shows that nine activists of the proscribed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan were killed within the remits of the Gulberg, Nazimabad, New Karachi Industrial Area, Sharea Faisal, Mobina Town and Orangi Town police stations. 

Eight people from the Baloch community were killed within the remits of the Pak Colony, Mauripur, Surjani Town, Zaman Town, Soldier Bazaar, Shah Latif and Mominabad police stations. 

Eight activists of the Pakistan People’s Party were killed within the remits of the Super Market, Saeedabad, Korangi, Kalakot, Malir City, Gulistan-i-Jauhar and Surjani police stations. 

The statistics show that 11 policemen were also killed by unidentified assailants within the remits of the Zaman Town, Saeedabad, Risala, Korangi, Khawaja Ajmair Nagri, Brigade, Nazimabad and Ibrahim Hydri police stations. 

The police data shows that seven Punjabi speaking people were killed in a similar fashion within the remits of the Paposhnagar, Docks, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Sachal and Shah Faisal Colony police stations. 

The data further shows that five doctors were killed during the period by unidentified assailants within the remits of the Site-A, Landhi, Frere, Bilal Colony and Mominabad police stations.Four people, including a senior cleric belonging to the Tehrik-i-Khatm-i-Nabuwwat were killed within the remit of the Mobina Town police station. 

The data categorises 24 victims as “others” because they were killed in targeted attacks but their political or sectarian affiliations was not clear. Two workers of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (Fazlur Rehman group) were killed while two activists of the Punjabi-Pakhtun Ittehad were also killed within the remits of the Pirabad and Sharea Faisal police stations, according to the data. 

According to the statistics, there were 11 people whose identity could not be established. 

Each activist of the Sunni Tehrik, Jamaat-i-Islami, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Pakistan Muslim League (Functional), Dawat-i-Islami was killed in targeted attacks while a man from Chitral, a Saraiki and a Sindhi-speaking man also fell prey to targeted killings. 

Similarly, a Rangers’ soldier, a dismissed policeman and an estate agent were also killed in the same manner, the data shows. 

Of the total of 249 cases, police have only been able to submit charge-sheets in seven cases, while nine cases have been rendered A-class. 

In the rest of 233 cases, investigation is still pending.

(By S. Raza Hassan, Dawn-13, 30/08/2010)

POLITICALLY motivated targeted killings, sectarian violence, forced occupation of other people’s property, illegal bulldozing of poor settlements, a growing crime rate and an increasingly helpless and corrupt administration are making Karachi ungovernable. 

There are many local, national and international causes for this state of affairs. However, a major cause is the politics of ethnicity and the close link it has unwittingly acquired with the trillions that can be made from the land and real-estate business. 

According to the 1998 census, 48 per cent of the city’s population is Urdu-speaking, 14 per cent Punjabi-speaking, 12 per cent Pushto-speaking and about nine per cent is Sindhi-speaking. The rest of the population speaks all the remaining languages of Pakistan. 

Almost 75 per cent of the city’s population lives in settlements or neighbourhoods segregated on the basis of ethnicity. This is not just true of low-income settlements but also of lower middle-income and some middle-income settlements as well. As such, the city is physically divided along ethnic lines, and in an increasing number of cases, along religious lines as well. Crossing from one ethnically defined neighbourhood to the other is, in many cases, no longer possible. 

Ethnically homogenous settlements exist in many global cities. However, unlike these cities, the state’s service and justice delivery institutions in Karachi have become weak and corrupt due to helplessness in the face of an ever-expanding population, and more so due to neglect by an unconcerned and self-indulgent social, bureaucratic and political elite. 

Today, in Karachi, if a person needs a job, or wants to get his child admitted to a school, wants a domicile certificate, wishes to get an FIR registered, or get a friend released from legal or illegal police custody, he will go to his ethnic organisation or networks. He may also have to pay some amount of money for this service but it is easier and cheaper to do this than go to a state agency. In recent years, it has also become common for ethnic networks to resolve family and property disputes. 

As a result of these realities, Karachi today votes on ethnic lines. By and large, Pakhtuns vote for the JUI and ANP. Sindhis and Baloch vote for the PPP, middle-class Punjabis vote for the Muslim League and the Urdu speakers for the MQM. Before 1992, this was not so. People, voted along ideological and class lines, although there was an ethnic element in the choice of ideologies. 

Different ethnic groups today toe their party lines which divides Karachi further. Mohajirs feel that the Talibanisation of Karachi is a real threat and that the Pakhtuns are responsible for it. Similarly, the Pakhtuns feel that target killing is carried out by Urdu speakers and aimed at ousting them from Karachi. The Sindhis and Baloch feel that the MQM is responsible for the Karachi conflict so that it can use it to strengthen its negotiating position with the PPP and ANP. What is serious about this situation is that at the local level, there is no communication between these differing points of view. 

Meanwhile, in the last 12 months, at least 17 estate agents and three land rights activists were murdered in Karachi and an unspecified number of estate agents have disappeared. Conversations with estate agents in locations where these killings took place reveal a situation not too different from other global cities such as Mumbai and Seoul, except that in these cities, unlike Karachi, killings are rare. 

A research into the Karachi situation shows that before deregulation of the economy as a result of the WTO regime, there was a powerful underground economy based on contraband goods, gold and foreign exchange. This was controlled by ‘criminal gangs’ who had the active support of the rogue elements in the police and customs. These gangs were subservient to these elements and as such, kept in check. 

After deregulation, except for drugs and alcohol, all other contraband goods became legalised and the nexus between the police, the custom officials and the criminal gangs was no longer effective. The gangs, independent of police and custom officials and with a lot of money and muscle power at their disposal, have gone into land and real estate for which they need the support of the political establishment which is ethnically divided. In addition, after devolution, local leaders in Sindh, as in the rest of Pakistan, have acquired considerable executive authority. 

As a result of these changes, a nexus between certain rival ethnic elements of the political establishment and the gangs has been established leading to a booming formal and informal real-estate business, much of it on illegally or coercively occupied land and properties in complete disregard of existing byelaws and zoning regulations. Violence, targeted killings and kidnappings of opponents, rivals and social activists are an essential part of this development process. 

The land-related law and order situation will get much worse, and the gangs much stronger, unless the Sindh politicians can rise above their ethnic and vote-related interests to negotiate the creation of effective state-controlled urban governance institutions. Such negotiations will have to be for promoting universal principles of justice and equity. However, so far all negotiations and agreements between them have been on the basis of ethnicity which merely strengthens the ethnic divide and makes effective governance difficult. 

It is unfortunate that the only urban governance-related consensus that the politicians have managed to achieve is the recent enactment of the Sindh High Density Development Board Bill as a result of which a non-technical committee of the political establishment will be able to determine urban density and hence land use. Thus, the political establishment has the potential of becoming the legalised godfather of those currently involved in the coercive land and real-estate business at the expense of the citizens of Sindh and the physical and socio-economic environment of its cities.

(By Arif Hasan, Dawn-7, 25/06/2010)

The solution, like the problem, is simple. The dispensation of both jobs and plots should be under the law and by a neutral body. But ethnic leaders, one and all, would be wary to agree to that for laws will preclude the favouritism and corruption that are the staple of our politics.

Laws can be designed to protect racial, regional, minority and other legitimate interests but the procedure must give an equal chance to compete to all those who are eligible. 

If this principle were to be applied to jobs and land allotment, there should arise no grievance or trouble. The cause of discontent lies in an unwritten, unethical compact among the bosses of all parties that they will hand out jobs or plots to whomsoever they like. The motive can be as varied as favouring a kin or rewarding a crony or plain bribery. Merit would be incidental. 

Violence tends to take an ethnic colour in Sindh but its roots lie in maladministration. The battle against communal or ethnic discrimination would have been won if government jobs and lands had been taken out of the equation. In vocational pursuits there is no clash; in fact there is interdependence.

For the most part, Pakhtuns run the transport system in Karachi — buses, taxis and rickshaws — which mohajirs hire to ride to their shops or homes. Pakhtuns are a hardy, toiling lot ready to do the chores that mohajirs won’t do. The mohajirs are more into skills. Together they keep the wheels of the economy turning. 

The animosity between the two communities dates back to Ayub Khan’s victory procession in 1965 that ended in mayhem. Since then the past has been buried more than once but the leaders dig it out continuously for their politics are sustained by hard ethnic cores. It is wholly unacceptable that supporters of parties that are ostensibly partners in the Sindh government are allegedly killing each other on the streets while their leaders revel in power and patronage.

One reform measure could be to cut the cabinet size to 10 ministers and do away with hundreds of hangers-on. It is preposterous for the chief minister to have 17 advisers at public expense who have no standing in the public. A wider source of conflict with an ethnic dimension is the changes made over the last 30 years in administrative boundaries and service structures, not for public welfare but for ethnic hegemony or to bring administration, particularly the police and land management, under political control.

The head of the district police was made answerable to a political nazim and commissions formed for public safety and crime control never functioned. The system introduced by Gen Musharraf hasn’t worked but professional hierarchies have been destroyed. The deputy commissioner, who was the coordinating head for law and order, revenue and land utilisation, was virtually reduced to the status of a staff officer to a nazim representing a party.

After 30 months in office the present government has shown no inclination nor has found the time to review the system which didn’t work then nor is working now. It is not known when the local government institutions will be revived but this must happen to administer civic affairs and development.

Law and order, land management and other regulatory affairs must revert to professional administrators. Not that all decisions or deals would then be fair but they wouldn’t be outright partisan either. The organised land mafia has come up as an adjunct of the new system. Before that there were touts who could bribe but not coerce officials. 

Ideally public affairs, and more particularly law and order and government lands, should be managed by professional civil servants with the ministers overseeing affairs to ensure that policy and law are not breached. The relationship between local councillors and the provincial government should also be governed by the same principle. This principle is of special importance in Sindh where districts have been split only to establish the hegemony of a clan or an ethnic group. A commission should now review whether there was any justification for tampering with long-established district boundaries.

The justification for splitting Karachi city into 18 towns, which on the face of it looks arbitrary and absurd, must also be reviewed. The reduced number of districts should then have career administrators for regulatory subjects and elected nazims, call them mayors if you will, for development. 

The killing spree in the wake of an MQM legislator’s murder which so far has claimed 90 lives (and the toll keeps mounting) is an indicator of the ethnic sensitivity of crime in Karachi. One keeps wondering what kind of reaction to terror will help retrieve the ideal of Pakistan that is fast receding in the shadows of religious and ethnic conflicts. 

Interior Minister Rehman Malik finds it handy to blame one or the other outlawed sipah or lashkar for targeted killings or mass murders.

Two suicide bombers were captured alive and handed over to the authorities by Ahmadi worshippers in Lahore. And in Karachi evidence is being gathered about the recent spate of killings.

If our intelligence and investigation agencies are still unable to identify and catch the culprits, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s allegation that elements in Pakistan’s ‘establishment’ are backing terrorists could win more adherents here at home and abroad.

(By Kunwar Idris, Dawn-13, 08/08/2010)

AMONGST the several manifestations of bad governance, unplanned commercialisation in major cities has emerged as a thorny issue with far-reaching implications. 

The phenomenon is reflective of systemic limitations in the functioning of urban planning agencies, which have failed to cater for the future developmental needs of major cities. Expedient solutions involving unplanned conversion of residential areas and roads to commercial usage have led to dire consequences for the spatial profile and environmental health of larger cities. 

Rooted in inefficient decisions by planning agencies vis-à-vis allotment, the situation has gone from bad to worse as weak enforcement has promoted corrupt practices and rent-seeking in commercialisation decisions. With rare exceptions, this phenomenon can be witnessed across many large and medium-sized cities in Pakistan, putting the sustainable future of these cities and its citizens in serious peril. 

To be fair, there is nothing wrong per se in an enhanced demand for commercialisation in major cities. The pressure of an ever-increasing population, diversified economic activities, increasing costs of wellbeing and a property boom are some of the factors that have a direct impact on demands for commercialisation. Well-planned commercialisation in larger cities can actually boost trade and investment, bringing wealth and economic benefits to the residents of the cities and the region. 

However, the commercialisation of larger cities also triggers unexpected consequences. Changing lifestyles and spending patterns coupled with environmental consciousness turn many erstwhile residential locations of prime choice into lucrative hubs of economic activities. In such situations, the temptation and perverse incentives for the abrupt change of land-use are overwhelming. It is here that an absence of a clear policy framework, non-responsive institutional arrangements and diluted enforcement mechanisms in planning agencies hinder smooth transition. 

Provincial governments in Pakistan have been trying to address urban planning and disruptive commercialisation problems through a range of policy instruments. From time to time commercialisation policies have strived to strike a precarious balance between efforts for streamlining the process of changes in land-use, and revenue-generation strategies for financing development. 

In the case of Punjab, the commercialisation policies of the early ’90s and the commercialisation rules of the post-2000 era indicate a gradual liberalisation within the jurisdiction of development authorities and town municipal administrations. These policies indicated a conscious effort on the part of policymakers to devise mechanisms to facilitate the public while discouraging the illegal conversion of residential properties to unauthorised commercial use. Land-use classification rules and zoning regulations have also been devised in recent years to help municipal entities and development authorities streamline commercialisation practices. 

The former were designed to curtail faulty commercialisation practices and streamline the whole mechanism of land-use change, especially from residential to commercial usage. The latter regulatory regime was meant to ensure the sound management of public spaces through the introduction of limitations and restrictions covering roads, buildings and other amenities. The avowed objective of these measures was to empower provincial governments and local authorities to tackle the disastrous impact of unplanned commercialisation while preserving and strengthening the growth potential of urban centres. 

However, a closer scrutiny of the situation in many larger cities in terms of the impact of current land-use planning and commercialisation practices leaves much to be desired. There is abundant evidence that the urban sprawl in large cities has generally been defying adherence to sound land-use classification and zoning regulations. In several cases, the divisions of urban centres for classification and zoning purposes were arbitrary, short-sighted and motivated by non-technical considerations. With a weakened regulatory system, the menace of temporary commercialisation became pervasive as the standards laid down were defied in collusion with the public functionaries concerned. 

Equally disturbing are the issues of duplication and confused jurisdiction amongst several organisations. Within a single city, there can be several agencies exercising parallel jurisdictions in urban governance. In case of building by-laws, development authorities and local governments may operate through conflicting implementation or enforcement systems. Such discrepancies and anomalies may be cited as the chief contributors to a culture of inefficiency, malpractice and outright corruption. 

Weak planning, implementation and a poor regulatory framework for commercialisation constitute as much of a problem for smaller cities as they do for larger metropolises. Small and medium-sized cities in Pakistan have also witnessed unprecedented population growth in recent years, and huge chunks of agricultural lands have been engulfed by urban areas. Unless managed through a properly laid down framework of urban planning and commercialisation, these medium-sized cities may also become unmanageable in the not too distant future. This would have drastic consequences for the future wellbeing of these cities, besides destabilising the growth potential of nearby metropolises. 

What is the way out? Putting into action monstrous mechanical giants to pull down storeys of illegal high-rises is one way of driving fear into the hearts of imprudent builders and public functionaries. 

Less dramatic, though of greater sustainable relevance, could be an institutional regeneration strategy covering the urban planning outfits of provincial and local governments. Replacing the myriad planning laws and rules with a single and comprehensive urban planning act for regional or local planning could be the first step. 

Devising interrelated physical planning frameworks and socio-economic development plans for large cities, fully supported by a strict enforcement regime, could be the best way forward. Delineated urban planning and regulatory functions amongst provincial and local governments, and adherence to the principles of urban-rural linkages, equitable development and public-private partnership, can transform our cities into true engines of growth.

(By Syed Rizwan Mahboob, Dawn-13, 02/08/2010)

ONE of the most important changes in economic landscape is under way. Unfortunately, neither the government nor the private sector is ready to deal with it. 

In the next one decade 50 per cent of the Pakistani population – perhaps an even greater proportion – will reside in cities of many sizes and shapes. By that time the population will have grown to 230 million. This means that 115 million people will live in towns and cities. These people will need goods and services the economy does not produce in adequate quantities at this time. 

The gap will increase unless the government – and within the government the Planning Commission – takes a careful stock of the emerging situation and does adequate planning for the future. 

The McKinsey Global Institute has, over the years, studied urban development patterns in the developing world and identified how governments can and should deal with them. The latest report to be published by it pertains to India. 

In India’s urban awakening: Building Inclusive Cities, Sustaining Economic Growth issued in April of this year, the institute paints a grim picture of what is coming to that country. “Even today, India’s cities are failing to provide a basic standard of living for their residents. But life could become much tougher as cities expand”, write the authors of the report. “Demand for every key service will increase five to seven times in cities of every size and type.” 

Among the many shortfalls that have to be provided for, McKinsey pays special attention to housing and infrastructure. Indian cities will need to add 700-900 million square meters of residential space in order to cope with the expected demand. This is equivalent to adding a Chicago every year. As much as $1.2 trillion worth of investment is needed to close the current supply-demand gap and cover the expected demand for the future. 

Reduce these numbers by about a tenth and you have a picture for Pakistan. However, there is no equivalent base of information available in Pakistan on which the government and the private sector needs to act. Why so much emphasis on the private sector? There are many reasons for this of which two are particularly important. The government is short of resources needed to meet the current and coming demand. The extreme shortage in the availability of electric power is an example of both lack of public resources to supply what is needed as well as the absence of long-term planning. The second reason is that the coming rate of urbanisation will increase the demand for goods and services only the private sector can provide. There is money to be made by those who begin to invest now for meeting future demand. This means that the private sector needs to reorient its production to meet the needs of the people living in towns and cities. 

The United Nations Population Division has estimated the pattern of growth of Pakistan’s urban population over the next couple of decades. It sees the urban population more than doubling between 2000 when it was estimated at 48 million to more than 104 million in 2025. At the start of this century a bit more than 33 per cent of the population lived in the country’s towns and cities. That proportion will increase to over 46 per cent in 2025. 

There will be a steady decline in the rate of growth of rural population. The rate is likely to decrease from 1.3 per cent in 2005-10 to only 0.28 per cent in 2020-25. In 2025-30, the number of people residing in the countryside will actually decline. This means that the number of people migrating from the rural to urban areas will outnumber the natural increase in rural population. 

There will be some change in the distribution of urban population among cities of different sizes. Karachi will remain the largest city with its population increasing from an estimated 13 million in 2010 to 19 million by 2025. By then Lahore will join Karachi as a mega-city defined as those with populations of more than 10 million people. Lahore’s population will increase from seven million in 2010 to 10.5 million in 2025. 

However there will be a slight decline in the proportion of these two cities in the total urban population. It will decrease from 32.3 in 2000 to 28.5 per cent in 2025. This is in keeping with the trend the United Nations believes will be followed all over the developing world. The earlier belief that a few mega-cities will dominate the urban landscape has been abandoned in favour of the suggestion that secondary cities – those with populations of one to five million – will become the dominant form of urban presence in the emerging world. 

The McKinsey report on India finds that that will indeed be the case for that country. However, the projections by the United Nations don’t see that trend for Pakistan. In Pakistan, the share of smaller cities in the range of 0.5 to 1.0 million more than doubles in the quarter century between 2000 and 2025 increasing from three to seven per cent. The number of cities in this category will increase from only two to eleven during this period. Demographers and development economists recognise five dimensions of a policy aimed at urban management – funding, governance, overall planning, sectoral planning, and urban shape. The resource constraint the country faces is well recognised. The government’s approach to overcome this is to go hat-in-hand to groups such as the Friends of Democratic Pakistan that held yet another meeting in Islamabad on July 17 to which Islamabad presented its energy policy and asked the “friends” to finance it. This approach is not viable over the long-run. 

The friends are prepared to turn up at these meetings since Pakistan today is regarded as the epicentre of global of terrorism. They have concluded that one important step to deal with this situation is to stabilise Pakistan and develop its economy. That way the vast armies of youth produced by an unrelenting increase in population will get occupied with the economy. But for a long-term approach to one aspect of the country’s demographics is not to postpone the important task of finding a solution that depends on domestic structures rather than on foreign help. 

This will require both policy and structural change to raise resources internally for building urban Pakistan. What the planners must be committed to is not preparing another strategy for financing by the Friends of Pakistan. 

What is needed is a viable urban policy. The first step in that direction is to hold a population census which was due in 2008 if the ten-year rule for the time between two censuses were to be observed or in 2010 if Pakistan were to be brought in line with other countries. And with the census should come a household survey that will tell us how much people earn and spend and what are the various categories of expenditure. 

This information is required in order for the government to provide services to the people living in urban areas and for the private sector to produce goods and commodities for their consumption.

(By Shahid Javed Burki, Dawn-13, 26/07/2010)

Incorrect waste analysis, unskilled sanitary staff, abundant ghost workers, insufficient sanitary staff, improper landfill sites and political intrusions are the main causes behind the lack of solid waste management (SWM) in the city. This was stated by All Pakistan Trade Union Federation Sindh General Secretary Farid Awan while talking on ‘Solid Waste Management in Karachi’ organised by the Urban Resource Centre.

Awan said 8,000 tonnes of solid waste was produced daily in the city, but only 60 percent of it was dumped and the remaining was left untreated, which has been a regular practice since 1983 because of the lethargy of the staff working in administrative and government offices. He said since 1983, the government had tried different ways for solving the problem of SWM and sought help from China as well, spending millions of rupees on different projects, but all of them failed and did not bear good results due to incorrect analysis and reports based on suppositions.

No practically possible results or factual surveys and reports have been presented yet, except the survey conducted by a Chinese company in 2007-8, he added. Awan said, “The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has spent the huge amount of Rs 700 million on the purchase of 200 vehicles for dumping the solid waste of the city. The CDGK have a total of 560 vehicles, but they are parked in the city government’s workshops, being damaged by the rough weather, while some of them are already non-functional. The fact is that the management of solid waste in the city is the responsibility of the municipal administration of the respective towns and not the CDGK.” He said the CDGK’s SWM department was doing nothing and huge amounts of money were being wasted on it.

The CDGK should prepare a strategy and frame a policy for the town municipal administrations responsible for lifting the solid waste, he added.

Awan said there was a shortage of sanitary workers in the city, as there were previously 11,000 staff workers, but now the number had come down to 8,000, most of whom were ghost workers since their names were in the documents, but they do not come to work and there are no checks regarding their attendance due to political intrusions. He said, “For dumping the solid waste of the city, there are two official landfill sites at Deh Gond Pass and Deh Jam Sakro, but they are not properly managed. Besides that, there are some illegal landfill sites at Landhi Chowrangi, Baloch Colony, Shershah and Malir River, etc.”

Recycling has now become an industry in the city and around 100,000 people are associated with it, while a number of makeshift settlements are also made by them who burn the garbage for metals, polluting the area, he added.

Awan said, “The population of the city has increased to an enormous extent and the amount of waste is also increased with more pollution, but the number of workers and vehicles in the sector have dropped, which is alarming.” He said, “Citizens’ support, installation of decomposition plants, educated and trained supervisory staff, increase in the number of workers, providing facilities to workers most of whom are suffering from diseases, factual survey of solid waste, identification of waste, availability of machinery, and proper check on the sanitary staff will provide solutions for the removal of waste from the city.”

According to Saiban’s project manger Shahid, they have decomposition plants for solid waste where they decompose 3,000 tonnes of waste daily and make manure out of it. He said, “We have told the people to provide us with dry and liquid waste separately, so that we can handle it easily.”

(By Sohail Raza Khattak, DailyTimesB1, 22/07/2010)