FOR Karachi, the choked drainage system remains the city’s Achilles’ heel, putting the city at risk of urban flooding during every monsoon and this year is no different as the rains have once again wreaked havoc with roads and streets presenting look of streams making the mobility of the people almost impossible. Some people also died due to electrocution.Political parties either on the treasury or opposition benches never get tired of highlighting the importance of Karachi in the country’s economy and nobody indeed cannot deny it importance but the question is as to what has been done to address the longstanding problems of the country’s economic hub. Apart from power shortage, the number one problem of the city currently is its choked drains. There are 550 small and large rain drains in the city. The responsibility of cleaning the 38 major ones lies with the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), while the cleaning of the remaining 512 small drains is the duty of the six district municipal corporations (DMCs) of Karachi. Scenes of rainwater on the roads are a sufficient proof that they are least equipped to meet this challenge. The accumulation of solid waste chokes the city’s natural waterways and the lack of regular cleaning results in blockages that cause the rainwater to spill over, creating problems for the citizens. Besides, the construction of markets and other establishments over drains, solid waste dumped into the drainage system is a serious obstacle in the passage of rainwater.
Over the last few years both the federal and provincial governments have been seeing launching cleaning drives to clear the tons of garbage but all these efforts proved futile. If the provincial government is really interested in addressing the woes of Karachiites, it should introduce a single institutionalized mechanism laced with latest equipment to deal with the issue of garbage in the city. To build such an infrastructure, help can be sought from friendly countries such as Turkey and China. Then there was an eleven million dollars funding project World Bank under which all the major drains of Karachi were to be lined. We will urge the provincial government to pursue this project and start the work on it soon after the monsoon season is over to bring some relief in the life of Karachiites.
