Karachi (HRNW)- The approach of the government to tackle the infrastructure and governance issues of Karachi is faulty and fragmented, as Karachi needs networks and not patchworks, said Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here Sunday.
He said the Sindh government is copying uplift in Lahore for political reasons instead of giving focus to the root causes of Karachi’s poor governance and very bad infrastructure. The government has imported a few double deckers, while Karachi needed revival of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR). He said a modern integrated public transport system comprising buses and rail is an old demand of the megacity.
He said people buy water from tanker mafia allegedly patronised by the Sindh government officials and ministers, but no steps are being taken to supply citizens water through pipelines. This is a billion rupee business and the government is in no mood to take action against the tanker mafia, while citizens have to suffer silently. If the Sindh government wants to copy Lahore it should remember that there is no tanker mafia in Lahore. He said water is a basic necessity of life and it is the constitutional obligation of the government to supply citizen’s clean piped water.
Altaf Shakoor said despite spending billions of rupees, the safe city project is yet to be completed. Crime is ripe and citizens are losing vehicles and valuables as the criminal’s roam freely in the megacity. The department of police is highly corrupt and deeply politicised. The police still work on old colonial era methods while modern investigative tools are not being applied. The net sufferer is the citizen of Karachi who lives under a perpetual insecurity.
Altaf Shakoor demanded to interlink and integrate all service providing departments and agencies and link them to citizens through complaint lodging dashboards. He said this method is being used all over the world but still our megacity is being governed with outdated fragmented methods which is a pity. He said Karachi deserves a megacity government for which the local government system should be amended to pave way for a new clause of megacity government. He said without this constitutional cover our megacity would continue to suffer. He asked the rulers that instead of wasting time and resources on patchworks now they should go to build networks to make Karachi a really modern and livable urban centre.
