QUETTA is accused of many things. It is infamous for supposedly sheltering Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and murderers of Hazaras. Only hardcore political issues and security problems make news here. But in the rush of things it is mostly forgotten that Quetta is also guilty of being an extremely ill-governed town, with more residents it was designed to hold, more vehicles its roads meant to entertain. A reputation, says its new mayor Dr Kaleem Ullah, that is about to change.

“Quetta needs reshaping,” he says. “The current infrastructure design is almost as old as I am.” That does mean too old.

Dr Kaleem Ullah, 77, was born in Pishin three years after once nature reshaped Quetta in 1935 when the earth around it shook, nearly burying the entire town. Before the disaster, Quetta is said to be a beautiful and prosperous place in which the Britishers saw the glimpses of a typical little European town of the time. After the earthquake, the mayor says, when the city was designed to function again, the administrators had 170,000 people in mind and now it has a population of around three million. “This makes the functioning of the town very difficult.”

Indeed it does, and Dr Kaleem Ullah feels he is the right man to get Quetta out of this mess. He claims he has been serving the people in different capacities for decades now. He has served twice as provincial minister in the mid-90s and runs a health foundation which has a 200-bed hospital in Quetta. He claims he had to sell his assets to run the foundation. “I want to pay back what the people have given me,” he says. He joined politics in 1974 and since then has been a member of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, which is currently in power in the province.

He plans to restore the tax collection structure. “There is absolutely no system of tax collection,” he says. He will make sure that building rules are followed and there is no room for encroachment. He will work to protect and preserve the environment and see that the waste is disposed of properly.

Right, but how will he go about his business? He has a textbook answer for that. He will listen to the advice of the intelligentsia. He will accommodate his worst of enemies for the greater good. The incompetent and the corrupt will be kicked out.

In a province of nationalistic politics where the names of most parties start with either the word Baloch or Pakhtun or Hazara, will Dr Kaleem Ullah, a Pakhtun, only look after the interests of his own vote bank? “My administration will be completely apolitical,” he says. “In Quetta, we are a single nation.”

That is why, he says, he will try and make sure no one is punished for belonging to a particular ethnic or religious group. “My dream is to see 200 empty beds in my hospital,” he says, using the idea of no sick people in his hospital as a metaphor for an absolutely peaceful Quetta.

However, things might not be that simple in Balochistan which is a politically tense province. Some trace back the reason of this political dissent to 1839 when the British came and conquered Balochistan. While there are others who think that the growing tension is a result of decades of neglect from successive federal governments of Pakistan and nothing but poor governance in the province. So, will a more sincere system of administration, starting even at such a low level of properly running the town of Quetta, improve things on the larger political front? Siddique Baloch, a senior journalist, does not think so. “The tension in Balochistan has roots in history,” he says. “It has been an issue since much before 1947.” However, disposing of the waste properly or maintaining a few manholes will do no harm, he says.

Dr Kaleem Ullah says he needs prayers in his effort to reshape Quetta. Siddique Baloch says the mayor needs more than prayers. According to him, previous governments of Balochistan have been reluctant to provide the allocated funds to the local bodies.

“Let’s hope the allocation of funds is not a problem,” Dr Kaleem Ullah says. He is hopeful that will not be an issue as his party is in the government and the chief minister, Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, is his friend.

But, in Balochistan where politics and administration are often intertwined, reshaping the destiny of a town that is prone to man-made and natural disasters will be a formidable task. So, the mayor needs to muster some strength, and, at the age of 77 years, he had better hurry.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play