Though Karachi has already gotten an elected mayor, it has not changed anything on ground as open gutters and pot-holed streets show the real face of the megacity, said Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here Sunday. He said Karachi is the only megacity of the world where people live in such bad conditions.
The civic infrastructure of the city is in shambles, as KMC, KDA, KWSC and other civic bodies are marred with corruption and over-stuffed with inefficient people recruited on political grounds during the MQM-PPP coalition government.
These people just draw their salaries without doing anything. They are parasites that suck the budget of Karachi. Altaf Shakoor said open gutters take lives of innocent people, specifically kids playing in streets. In the civilized parts of the world mayors and ministers resign if such mishap occurs, but sadly Karachi lacks such a brave breed of politicians and administrators. He said there is no accountability of the officials whose negligence results in such tragedies.
Corrupt and inefficient government officials enjoy full impunity in our society. Even citizens themselves do not care and no government official or department issued under the Torts law. He asked the KMC to overhaul its whole structure and functioning.
Strict action should be taken against negligent officials from top to bottom. Modern information technology tools and artificial intelligence should be used to improve the civic governance of the megacity.
A dashboard or App should be developed so that the citizens could report about any open manhole, broken gutter and water line, accumulated garbage, missing streetlight, bad traffic jam and other such civic problems in real time from their cell phones showing the exact Google location of the site. He said in all other parts of the world surveillance cameras and artificial intelligence bases technology control traffic and crimes and help in reporting civic complaints.
He said traffic violations are recorded automatically by these surveillance cameras and AI systems and tickets are automatically issued to the violators. He asked why we can’t apply and adopt these systems in our urban centers particularly in the megacity of Karachi.
