JUST before 0700 hours on August 24 the telephone rang. On the line was my good friend, Dr Shershah Suri, urging me to act quickly, at once. Why? I asked. Well, the party workers of the MQM are busy hacking off, discriminately, the branches of the 100-year old trees that line Bunder Road.

That day, the party was to organize a mass rally on Bunder Road to protest against the MMA opposition to the passing of the amendment to the Hadood Ordinances and it was planned that the party chief, self-exiled Altaf Hussain Bhai would address the gathered faithful from the safety and comfort of his north London suburban headquarters. The trees would obstruct the sound of his voice — they had to be dealt with.

Who, I asked Shershah, is available at this time of the morning and who, if available, will do anything to save the trees? The rally was held, the entire city’s traffic was disrupted, the trees suffered, and Altaf Bhai’s expected harangue, the voice of the famed Londoner, was not heard. Science let us down.

The next day, the 25th, an invitation card arrived from the Pakistan Association for Mental Health for a fund-raising gala evening. It bore cheerful tidings which set the trend for that day:

“Every other house in Karachi has one or more persons taking tranquillisers.

“Every fifth house has a psychosomatic/psychiatric problem disturbing family members, the neighbourhood of society in general.

“Every tenth house has a psychiatric patient needing medical attention for depression, psychosis, psychosomatic disorders, obsession, mental retardation, epilepsy, and drug dependence.

“In Pakistan there are 16 million people who are mentally disturbed.

“In Karachi there are 16 hundred thousand people suffering from emotional, intellectual and/or social adjustment disorders.

“Among them, at least three hundred thousand are those who need psychiatric/psychological attention. They are likely to become a permanent burden on society if not taken care of.”

On the morning of the 26th, Roland deSouza, chairperson of Shehri, appeared with more good news to lighten up the day. This time it was about the beaches of Karachi, or what remains of them. In April last year, five concerned citizens of the Defence Housing Authority approached the Sindh High Court (CP 403/05) seeking to save one section of the beach — the 13-acre Usmani Park, between Beach Avenue and the sea — from being converted into yet another blight on our lives, another gigantic shopping-cum-entertainment-cum-residential complex. Last January, Shehri too intervened with a petition of its own. It was brought to the court’s attention that if the DHA is allowed to get away with this ‘privatization’ of the public beach, it will have the adverse effect of encouraging other parties to attempt to exploit and privatise what other few open spaces, amenities and facilities are left for the people. Going overboard slightly, Roland even suggested that the polluted air we breathe may even be in danger.

As the petition states, the sea shore conversion project is in violation of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997. If this ‘development’ is allowed, the increased commercialisation will add to the existing pollution. It will destroy any surviving marine micro-organisms and will result in the extinction or mass reduction of fish, turtles, and coastal birds, and in the general depletion of the sea-food industry.

A Sindh government notification of May 1975 prohibits the leasing of land within the area of the ports or sea shore limits. The beaches around the DHA are within the limits of the Karachi Port Trust and the Port Qasim Authority.

According to a DHA newsletter, the Authority has a grand plan to convert 14 kilometres of “virgin, unspoilt (sic) waterfront” into a $600 million series of playgrounds and leisure/pleasure spots to be known as the ‘DHA Waterfront Development Project’ which will provide to the rich and affluent of Karachi “the luxuries of an aristocratic life”. This extravaganza consists of seven zones with expensive commercial, entertainment, residential, commercial, hotel and office buildings, and includes the “reclamation of 74.5 acres of land, for a high-end Hotel Complex,” and “5-star hotels owning private segments of the beach,” and a “private beach with lagoon for hotel & residential blocks.”

The citizens must have a very convincing case because the DHA has finally retained the professional services of two legal heavyweights — Makhdoom Ali Khan, the Attorney-General of Pakistan, and Anwar Mansoor Khan, the Advocate-General of Sindh, both acting in their private capacities — to prove the citizens wrong.

After what we have suffered over the past month — and are still suffering the after-effects, can this city really cope with these gimmicky development schemes which only serve to line a few select pockets? Is there any infrastructure to bear further so-called ‘development’ projects? This city has 16 to 18 million inhabitants, nearly half of whom live in katchi abadis. It has serious problems with its water supply, sewerage systems, storm drainage, and electricity supply.

With the completion of the K-III water scheme, the Indus river supply exceeds 550 million gallons per day (MGD = 1,000,000 GD) with a further 100MGD coming from the Hub dam. With 650MGD, Karachi’s inhabitants have 35-40 gallons available per head per day, a figure that is adequate in our context. Yet water is not getting to all the people. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board’s contention that there is a 30 per cent (180MGD) leakage seems exaggerated. The main reasons are theft, in equitable distribution, and the absence of the writ of the government — anarchy and no Law and Order, which is the responsibility of a government.

Of the 450MGD untreated sewage that flows into the gutters, approximately 100MGD is treated in three poorly operating sewage-treatment plants. So, 350MGD of untreated effluent flows into the Arabian Sea and into the creeks around Karachi. This amount would fill some 40 super-tanker ships of 50,000-tonne capacity each on a daily basis. Do we qualify even as a second world country?

The surface drainage of this city died with the recent rains — about three inches only. Unplanned urbanisation, ad hoc construction, the closure of natural nallahs and drains with illegal buildings will make this a recurring problem. The administration has combined the sewerage and storm drainage systems, but takes no steps to clean the drains before the monsoons.

The recently privatized KESC has inherited an overloaded and dilapidated generation, transmission and distribution network, with a demand load of about 2000MW, from which about 20 per cent of the available electricity is stolen. The system collapsed at its weakest points during the downpour, leaving many residential, commercial and industrial areas without power for days on end. Many persons were electrocuted by fallen wires during the rain.

A well thought-out proactive, not reactive, methodology is required to address the issues of the critical utilities in this city — not the expropriation of whatever spaces are left open and massive commercialisation and ‘development’ relying on the present totally inadequate infrastructure. Whoever it be who has this city at his mercy needs to get his priorities lined up in the right direction.

Who was it who exhorted us to ‘never despair’?

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk