Tooba Altaf
Karachi-one of the world’s fastest growing and third largest cities, is facing one of the worst public transportation fiascoes. A city that was destined to become a metropolitan of the sorts of Istanbul, Shanghai and Bangkok, is fighting the battle for its survival. According to a 2019 study, by Mister Auto, a car-parts company which surveyed the transportation of 100 major cities, Karachi was ranked as having the worst public transport system.
Dubbed as a political orphan, despite of its importance, the city has frequently seen a tussle over its administrative affairs, not only between political parties but also between Centre and province. Although, the 18th amendment in the Constitution of Pakistan, charts out clearly the division of administrative authority between Centre and provinces, and has given maximum autonomy to the provinces in their internal affairs yet when it comes to the worsening public services, unfortunately there is a barrage of blame game between the two.
The city host to major commercial ports of the country and many regional headquarters of the companies, is the jugular vein of the Nation. Karachi fulfills the major needs of the country yet faces extreme budget deficit, bad-governance and corruption. The city’s outgoing mayor complained about lack of both administrative control and funds, claiming an authority of only 12% over the city. So, who calls the shots in Karachi, has become the arena of battlefield, where each claiming it to be his prized possession but none willing to give it, its due.
However, the issue of transportation does not exist in isolation. The issue is also coupled with increasing social issues such as mass migrations of the citizens form small and underdeveloped regions of the country, in search of livelihood. Most of the surroundings of the railway tracks have been turned into illegal slums, for the city’s poor immigrants. Any new railway project would have to relocate the people from these slums without having a policy fallout.
The city, once well connected by a circular railway which came to halt in 1990s, embarked many a times on infrastructural development projects, never coming to fruition. For instance, there had been a talk for reviving the circular railway project, since the last 15 years and the city’s posh area relies on water tankers in what is called to be as tanker mafia for daily water supply, with the water supply projects in the making for 18 years. The latest transportation project was the development of a bus line named as Green Line bus project announced six years ago, expected to be completed by 2021.
Such is the gloomy state of affairs of the country’s mega city, revealed all too well during the urban flooding, this monsoon. This calls for firm consensus among the Center and the Provinces, in this case Sindh, on the question of provincial authority and bringing an end to the political parties’ tug of war. Once, the consensus is built, the developmental policy of the city is to be formulated anew, as mere reforms and reconstruction would not suffice.
The author Tooba Altaf is an International Relations graduate while working as a Researcher at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
