A VAST section of Karachi’s population lives in apartments and is treated like second-class citizens by municipal agencies, including the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC).

These residents are not provided basic utilities and civic services, like regular water supply, proper sanitation system and daily garbage collection. As a result, they have to hire private staff to get these jobs done, and have to pay them out of their own pockets.

Surprisingly, apartment residents continue to receive heavy utility bills in the name of water supply and conservancy on a regular basis from the KWSC along with warnings and threats.

The municipal authorities have divided the city by providing a double standard of services; one for the houses, and the other for the apartments.

Their negligent attitude has left the apartment residents at the mercy of a self-help system run by unauthorised, unregistered ‘associations’.

Most of these bodies are dominated by unelected, influential people who collect monthly charges at their own discretion, and are not accountable to anyone.

The residents have to pay their monthly ‘contribution’ to the so-called associations, while still paying all the various municipal entities for the services they are supposed to provide, but actually do not provide anything. This is blatantly unfair.

Israr Ayoubi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2025