"Misbah this side," he opened up just as he used to do while heading the Karachi Development Authority and the Karachi Building Control Authority back in the 1990s. Shah Mohammad Misbah rang to thank me for having remembered his kinsman and senior, the talented town planner Ahmed Ali, mentioned in my column of April 27 on the above topic.

He asked if I would become a trustee of the memorial society which bears Ahmed Ali's name and is now embarking on "adopting" the park named after this good man who so many years ago served Karachi well. 'No', was my response. We have enough problems extracting from the government the gutter water and electricity it promised to provide for the two parks adopted by my family - the Bagh-e-Rustom and the Bagh-e-Mucca in Clifton. And you, Misbah, have been hibernating while some 50 acres out of the 60 acres allotted for the Ahmed Ali Park have been eaten away by illegal allotments and encroachers. No, he said, I have hardly been hibernating. There is an 'inquiry' against me and though I have so far been in court 53 times the case just does not proceed. Nobody comes to prosecute or to prove the allegations against me. Poor Misbah - he was always thought to have been fiscally honest.

Another response to my column was a letter to the editor, printed on May 7, from the nameless PRO of the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA). His contention : "KBCA is appropriately and adequately devolved to 18 towns of Karachi . . . while we need more of our main city roads to be opened to commercialization, a concurrent development of infrastructure is needed and is being catered for."

The KBCA insists that it has 'achieved financial stability', thanks to the proceeds collected from commercialization and the 'regularization of illegal buildings', and so forth, quite ignoring the fact that such proceeds should rightly be utilised for the growing infrastructural needs of residential areas devastated by illegal constructions and not for KBCA salaries and expenses, particularly expenses incurred on account of the purchase of a Rs.1.2 million car for the KBCA retired army brigadier chief and four buses for his employees, and certainly not for 'rewards' distributed to those who themselves in the first place promoted the illegal constructions.

The 'commercialization of 6 + 9 roads' resolution was tabled at the City Council session on April 22. The old teak council hall in the KMC building has been refurbished to accommodate double the number of people now elected to sit in it. Teak has been replaced by formica; the dignified wooden benches by metal chairs resembling those we see outside 'bhatiarkhanas'. A loss, another loss; but then when is there ever a gain? Anyhow, the consensus was that the matter needed in-depth study and consideration, and a subcommittee of 23 councillors, headed by Abdul Rasheed Beg, was formed and asked to report back in a month. Members of the NGO SHEHRI suggested to the subcommittee members that before they present their recommendations they study and analyse:

1) Information obtained from the CDGK Master Plan Group of Offices on: the history/pros/cons of commercialization in Karachi; layout maps; details of illegal construction on the 15 roads; the magnitude of the enhanced need for utilities (electricity, water, sewerage) and social amenities (parking, clinics, police stations, parks, playgrounds, etc); changes in the traffic flows; alternatives to 'ribbon/strip commercialization'; the relationship to other urban planning issues (housing, industries, transport, education, health, law and order, etc)

2) Responses received from advertisements and public hearings held to obtain the views and comments of all affected parties - citizens, professionals, NGOs, etc.

The 23 subcommittee members were also invited to a discussion of the issues involved. Only six councillors (Jaffar-ul-Hassan, Saeed Ghani, Ghulam Abbas Talpur, Rehana Efroz, Shamim Mumtaz Wasi and Younus Sohan) turned up to hear planner Arif Hasan, architect Akeel Bilgrami and several SHEHRI members make presentations.

The highly qualified and experienced Arif Hasan gave an overview of the planning problems of Karachi. He emphasized that the issue of 'commercialization' could not be looked at in isolation from what is happening to the rest of the built environment - no city structure/master plan exists ; various activities have developed in an ad hoc manner all over Karachi; spaces for warehousing, cargo terminals, and the services sector to transport (terminals, depots, workshops) have sprung up at random, creating traffic congestion and environmental degradation; and the absence of housing and infrastructure for the lower income groups is adding to the population density of the existing settlements, creating veritable slum conditions.

Establishing commercial corridors along these 15 arteries, only three of which have service roads, and some of which are major exits from and entries to the city, would not only adversely affect the concerned areas but generally exacerbate the multiple urban/environmental problems of Karachi.

Arif managed to convince most of those present into agreeing with him and admitting that the basic reason for the promotion of commercialization was to raise money for the city government and that the need for additional commercial space was almost non-existent.

As for the inequitous 'regularization,' and in the 'laissez faire' milieu generated by the 'regularization' ordinance so senselessly promulgated by former governor of Sindh, Mohammadmian Soomro, buildings of all sizes and shapes are being approved and constructed, in complete defiance of any town-planning principles and layouts. I would like to invite Mohammadmian (who has been removed from our midst and now chairs the most honourable Senate) to spare some of his 'precious time' one day and accompany me to examine and assess for himself the damage his ill-conceived ordinance has done and continues to do to the city of Karachi.

There is also a dangerous aspect to all this. How many citizens interested in the environmental and safety concerns of Karachi know that most illegal high-rises have been 'regularized' without correctly and technically ensuring that the structures comply with earthquake-resistant codes and are safe for occupation? In their indecent haste to generate money (officially or otherwise), the KBCA has conveniently relied on the certification of 'briefcase' engineers who do no practical design work but merely sign and stamp drawings. If the buildings collapse during severe seismic tremors, as they did in 1999 in Turkey and again last month, and in 2001 in Gujarat, the government can turn round and happily blame the hired 'briefcase' professionals.

Since the departure in August 2002 of the KBCA Chief Controller of Buildings, the retired army brigadier and engineer, Dr. Zafar Malik, one of those rare creatures recognised as good and honest men (who has sadly since died), the new administration, headed by neither an engineer nor an architect, has pressured the KBCA officials of each zone to 'regularize' two buildings each day. Those who have applied for 'regularization' have generally been either owners of residential houses or highrise developers against whom stand High Court demolition orders.

Certain builders are allowed to pay only 25 per cent of the penalties, the rest supposedly to be paid in instalments, after which the completion/regularization plan is issued. This concession enables KBCA to collect some of the money due, saves the builder from demolition and/or court action, but leaves the issue in limbo. Experience over the past decades has shown that builders do not pay due instalments. Over four billion rupees is now owed to the KBCA for commercialization, regularization, additional storeys, and so forth.

On to another form of 'regularization'. On January 3, 2001, the Sindh Urban State Land (Cancellation of Allotments, Conversions and Exchanges) Ordinance 2001 was promulgated to deal with the unlawful allotments by political governments since 1985 of large tracts of urban land in Karachi for residential, commercial, and industrial purposes. Land unlawfully allotted amounts to almost 10 per cent of the area of this city.

The ordinance allows the unlawful allottee to 'regularize' his illicit acquisition by paying the difference between the market price and price at which the land was favourably allotted. No account is taken of the fact that most of the allotments of raw land are not in consonance with (or are in blatant violation of) a master-plan or town planning scheme and thus further degrade the built environment of Karachi.

All decisions of this government are now being made on a pecuniary basis, and all revenues are spent on propping up a profligate government structure. The writs of law and order are virtually non-existent. Social responsibilities of the state such as education, health, security, and other conventional functions of government are being progressively assumed by the private sector as state institutions cannot cope. The regulatory functions assumed by government departments are, in actual fact, mere extortionary functions.

Helpless, we the people are, and helpless we will remain.