KARACHI, Nov 5: The Sindh government on Tuesday notified Karachi’s new administrative boundaries when it created a sixth district as part of its plans to make the sprawling city manageable.

“It is part of our plan to provide the city facilities to people at their doorstep. We may divide the city more to create more districts to make it governable,” a senior official in the provincial government told Dawn.

According to the notification issued by the provincial revenue department, the government of Sindh created the new district, Korangi, in the Karachi division in exercise of powers conferred under Section 6 of the Sindh Land Revenue Act, 1967 and with the approval of the competent authority.

The notification said the authorities had varied the limits of four Karachi districts —South, East, West and Malir — and did not touch the limits of the fifth one i.e. District Central.

The government created new subdivisions and talukas and varied the limits of existing subdivisions and talukas of the abovementioned districts, including Korangi Karachi.

The six divisions and their subdivisions and talukas are as below:

Karachi-South with subdivisions and talukas of Saddar, Arambagh, Civil Lines, Garden, Lyari, Harbour and Mauripur.

Korangi district consists of Model Colony, Shah Faisal, Korangi and Landhi sub-divisions.

Karachi-East district comprises of Ferozabad, Jamshed Quarters, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Gulzar-i-Hijri (Scheme-33).

Malir district comprises Bin Qasim, Ibrahim Hyderi, Shah Mureed, Gadap, Airport and Murad Memon Goth, while Karachi-West encompasses Orangi Town, Mominabad, SITE, Baldia Town and Manghopir.

Karachi-Central remained unchanged with Liaquatabad, Gulberg, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad and New Karachi subdivisions.

In Karachi-South, the Garden subdivision also contains defunct Eidgah subdivision along with existing Garden; Lyari replaces the City subdivision and Saddar contained the area falls in the Saddar police station, DHA Phase 1 and 2 and defunct Preedy subdivision.

District South is stuffed with Harbour and Mauripur subdivisions of Karachi-West. It concedes the area falling between DHA Phase 1 and Baloch Colony Road up to KPT Bridge, i.e., Baloch Colony, Akhtar Colony, Manzoor Colony, etc, to Karachi-East. Besides, Deh Gujro-I, southern part of the Lyari river or part Scheme-33 has been included in the district East.

Officials said the carving out of a new district was a response to a longstanding demand of the people, who wanted bifurcation of the thickly populated Karachi-East.

So far, the government had not merged the Karachi district council, which controls the city’s rural areas, with Malir’s Bin Qasim subdivision to form another district as has already been planned.

Besides, the plans to notify another district carving out of Karachi-South and West after the name of Lyari had not been shelved because of the opposition of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

“In fact, we have decided to put it in motion and make it bit by bit by taking every stakeholder into confidence,” said a government minister.

MQM’s Khawaja Izharul Hasan lately said new districts were not established on anyone’s desire.

He said it was purely a constitutional matter, which should be discussed at a proper forum before making it public.

Mr Khawaja had further said the Pakistan Peoples Party government was more interested in bringing all city resources under its control rather than serving the people of Karachi through a mandate, which had been enjoyed by the MQM.

“The MQM will not accept any such proposal and it enjoys legal rights to oppose it.”

Another MQM leader had warned the government of consequences if more districts, particularly in Karachi, were created.

Senior minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, however, said the PPP loved Lyari as much as the rest of Karachi and its six districts had been ‘equally divided’ to the benefit of its people.

“It is the main objective of our government to facilitate our people to the core of our heart and the formation of a new district just manifests that,” he said.

A senior official in the provincial revenue department said there were ‘some more’ proposals left with them to be taken up to create more districts in the province, Karachi in particular.

“Making Karachi manageable is the most urgent call of the day. The city has to be governed in governable bits rather than giving it to fewer people to manage it with smaller resources,” he said.