IT seemed that the crisis of ghee shortage that had gripped the city for more than two months was now coming to an end. On Oct 10, 1973 it was announced that Karachi had been allocated 3000 tons of vegetable ghee per month, out of which 2,400 tonnes would be consumed by ration card holders and the rest by establishments, hotels and shops. A major portion of it — 2,700 tonnes — was being supplied by six mills located in the Sindh capital and the remaining 300 tonnes by a factory in Hyderabad. According to the ration cards issued by the Food Department, the number of units [in the city] totalled 5,200,000.

Speaking of numbers, the effects of the dismemberment of the eastern part of the country (now Bangladesh) after almost two years were still being felt and experienced. On Oct 9, it was reported that the day before the Soviet plane which had started airlifting repatriates from Karachi to Dacca and vice-versa had brought back 97 Pakistanis from Dacca. It was the fourth such Soviet flight and until now had repatriated 197 Pakistanis and 261 Bangladeshis. The USSR Consul-General, S K Vorobiev, was present when the plane landed at Karachi airport. The next day, 524 Bangladeshi defence personnel and civilians were taken to Dacca on three separate planes.

USSR officials were also in the news on Oct 11. In an interview, the leader of a Soviet team of ‘steel’ experts, Lituinenko, claimed the first phase of the Karachi Steel Mill at Pipri would be completed by end of 1980. He spelled out the schedule of the programme and said the construction was to begin in 1974. The team stayed in Pakistan for two months to finalise a detailed project report.

In terms of infrastructural development and general facilities, another piece of good news came on Oct 14 when this newspaper ran a story highlighting that the dying tramway system of Karachi might get a new lease of life if the recommendations of the Karachi Master Plan were accepted by the government. Central to the view of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) was the idea that compared to buses trams provided better and cheaper means of transportation to the public. The scheme proposed an initial investment of Rs3 million to modernise the existing tramway routes. Out of that, Rs1.54m would be spent on renewal of the present double track between Saddar and Boulton Market, and the remaining amount would be used for changing the outdated engines of tramcars. Due to neglect and lack of government support, the service in the city was fading away. The number of tramcars operating in Karachi was only 15, whereas in 1972, it was 30.

Sometimes, not just means of transportation but means of communication, too, need a revival. On Oct 12, the Sindh government cancelled the declaration of daily Jasarat Karachi under the Press and Publications Ordinance. The orders for cancelling the paper’s declaration were served on the paper’s management. Earlier, the Sindh-Balochistan High Court had declared infructuous a petition filed by Jasarat challenging the Sindh government’s order of suspending the publication of the paper after the advocate general of Sindh informed the court that the provincial government had withdrawn the suspension order. The newspaper was suspended for a period of 30 days on Sept 2 for publishing ‘objectionable’ articles and editorials.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2023