On 29 October 2020 a Webinar was held on “Mega City Karachi and its Planned Developments” under the auspices of Karachi Council of Foreign Relations (KCFR) chaired by its Chairman Mr. Ikram Sehgal. The Plenary speaker was Administrator Karachi, Mr. Iftikhar Ali Shalwani. Commodore (Retd) Sadeed Anwar Malik, Secretary General and CEO KCFR moderated the Webinar.
Mr. Malik opened proceedings by shedding light on KCFR which is a prominent think tank of Karachi that deliberates on various issues such as foreign relations, economy and economic affairs of Pakistan, etc. Late former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Saeed-uz-zaman Siddiqi was the founding chairman while a number of ambassadors, generals and members of the business community are members. Introducing Mr. Iftikhar Shalwani, Mr. Malik said that he is an officer of Pakistan Administrative Services and belongs to the DMG group. In 1983 he was schooled in Liaquat University Medical and Health Sciences and is a doctor by profession. In 2004 he left for London for doing his Masters in Regional and Urban Planning studies, completing the degree in 2005. Apart from English, Urdu and Sindhi he is also fluent in Spanish.
Chairman KCFR Ikram Sehgal welcomed Mr. Shalwani and all participants. He began by saying that Karachi is a difficult place this is the understatement of its time. It is difficult also because largely it is an unplanned city and the various utilities/services that support Karachi, such as electricity, gas, water, transportation, police, etc. which are the basic ingredient of any Metropolitan city, are all disconnected to an extent. “I realized this when I was Chairman K-Electric for a year and had interaction with Mr. Shalwani, while the interaction was quite pleasant, the times were not”. It is all right for the Pakistan govt to say ‘we have appointed an Administrator Karachi’, but the question remains, “what have you given him, what role, what responsibilities, what authority have you given him to coordinate all these services and bring them on one platform?” The Federal govt along with the Sindh govt proposed quite a package for the economic uplift of Karachi and if you look at the entire thing, it becomes a complete project that has to be carefully thought out. Mr. Shalwani has a very good background but we require him to step up and please define to us, with a lot of skeptics around, whether they will let him do his job? We know that he can do the job.
Mr. Shalwani thanked the participants saying he was humbled and started with a brief introduction as to his responsibilities as Administrator Karachi. Having served two years as Commissioner Karachi and now having been given this responsibility, let me tell you replacing a politically elected Mayor is a difficult task, from a completely bureaucratic position to a hybrid-political assignment. I hope that I will be able to deliver as I believe a lot of expectations and hopes are pinned on me. I am grateful to the Federal and the Provincial govt and all the stakeholders for finally finding in me a consensus candidate to be the Administrator.
I have always said that Karachi is a mini-Pakistan where there is never a dull moment. Any big event can be over one day but the very next day something else starts so you can never be complacent. Basically we face three major issues in Karachi. First is the Solid Waste Management, number two is Water and the third and most important is the Public Transport. In these sectors my authority is somewhat limited as far as my statutory responsibility because I am exercising the powers of the Mayor of Karachi according to the Local Govt Ordinance so it is still a very cumbersome task. In terms of Solid Waste, we recently started a cleanliness campaign and have everyone on board i.e. the Solid Waste Management Board, all the DMCs, all the principal Commissioners and all field officers. By virtue of my previous experience as Commissioner I have the advantage of still getting all cooperation and assistance from Deputy Commissioners, Asst. Commissioners and for that matter from the Police and I am trying my best that the cleanliness campaign must show some positive results. We know that in Karachi’s four districts, not counting District Korangi and Central, we have solid waste management board working who have a contract with two Chinese companies but their performance is not satisfactory for which we have given them lot of warnings. But now we are giving this to one contractor only so that only one is responsible. Karachi basically suffers fragmentation of authority and fragmentation of power unlike Islamabad which has only one Chairman CDA who is responsible for almost everything. In Karachi there are so many govt entities/departments such as KMC, Solid Waste Management Board, Karachi Water Supply KDA, Lyari Development, Malir Development, etc. All these powers are divided in various agencies and you can imagine the mess that is created. Take for example garbage or water supply, if you complain to one entity it will say it is not their responsibility but KMC’s, KMC will say go to KDA who will say it is DHA while DHA will say it is Clifton Cantonment’s responsibility and so on and so forth. When I was Commissioner and this type of situation came up, I could not say I was not responsible because as Commissioner you are responsible. But now as Administrator Karachi I find myself in the same dilemma, I know it is not my responsibility but as Administrator exercising the powers of the Mayor, how can I say to the Governor, the Chief Minister, etc. that this is not my responsibility? You have to own all the departments you are coordinating. What we really need in Karachi is integration of power rather than fragmentation.
As far as water is concerned, the provincial govt has already taken this up with the FWO and they are doing the K4 project, almost 50% of the work is already done and now we are in the mode of augmentation with the help of the World Bank. This is being pursued as a priority by the federal and provincial govts.
Public transport is a big issue. We already have one Green Line Corridor completed from Surjani Town up to Numaish and then we have various Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) Corridors undertaken by the Federal govt and various donor agencies like Asian Development Bank, World Bank such as Red Line, Green Line, Orange Line, etc. We are trying to complete these BRT corridors but it will take time. The infrastructure of Green Line is almost complete, we are waiting for the rolling stock which should be here by 2021 as I have been told. For other sectors we are having the feasibility done. A project that is close to my heart is the Tram line I am trying to bring into Karachi for which we already have a generous offer from our brotherly country, Turkey. This will just be the Phase I, a tourist tram, a modern tram line like many would have seen in Istanbul, not like what we had fifty years ago. It will run from Hotel Metropole, the Street Library through Club Road, passing in front of the Commissioner office to Karachi Gymkhana, Pearl Continental towards Shaheen Complex, turn left to I.I. Chundrigar Road and end up at Tower. While that is still a dream, we are negotiating with the Turkish govt and hope to finalise this within the next two years.
Other than the above we have drainage and sewerage that comes under the water issue. The sewerage lines date back to pre-independence times or the latest would be the 1960s and are in extremely fragile state. We are trying to make an overall scheme where we don’t really build roads on top of these sewerage lines because in the monsoon these lines sink in and destroy these roads as well. Investing in black top roads without making proper sewerage/drainage lines would be an exercise in futility.
My endeavour is to make Karachi walkable by making pavements that have vanished, we have cleared the footpaths from Metropole to Saddar. We are also trying to promote sports and make Karachi a sports destination. Go to any part of the world and the city talks to you but in Karachi we don’t see the names of streets, roads, direction signs, etc. Karachi is a city of nameless roads and streets, and of the few that exist most are not placed correctly. We are trying to make a project ‘Standardisation of Street Signs’ where signs will be placed on every street and road, new names and street signs are also being proposed named after international personalities and destinations. Recently in the South we have named a street as Istanbul Avenue as we have brotherly relations with Turkey and are trying to have a Casablanca Avenue as well.
Another initiative taken was the Karachi Marathon organised in 2019 which was a big success. I had planned it as a local event but it turned into a national event and then into an international event as a lot of our guests from foreign consulates, members of the diplomatic corps and foreigners participated. The second marathon was organised in Feb 2020 just before COVID-19 hit us which was also successful. Insha’Allah I hope, in 2021, if all goes well and we do not have a second wave of COVID, the third Karachi marathon will be held.
Another event where we received a lot of appreciation was the PSL Cricket Tournament when we decorated the entire city naming it as Cricket City. When I was invited by the Chairman PCB to the opening ceremony of PSL in Dubai, I found it to be quite a dull affair but once back in Karachi, everyone saw how the city was decorated and lit up, the festivity points, etc. were arranged and all foreign cricketers and their coaches and staff were extremely happy and appreciative.
If you compare Karachi to other cities, and I have seen cities that are worse than our city, you start to really value your city more. Another initiative we took was the Street Library which was taken because when I walked around Hotel Metropole the footpath had just disappeared and there was a 12-foot-high wall built near the Village restaurant. We were able to have the wall removed by going to the courts and happily, this library is still there. While it is not a library where one can go and study for an exam, it is there to inculcate the importance of books and reading into one’s life. I always say to the younger generation that you can get information from Google but to attain wisdom and knowledge you have to read books. The Frere Hall library has been closed down for the last three years, it was only recently re-opened to the public. When I recently went there, I saw young people engrossed in reading and studying. We made a CSS corner there and can see its results, the hustle and bustle of young people coming in and discussing history, Pakistan affairs, etc. was heartwarming. Here I would like to appeal to many in our audience and to our enlightened professors and lecturers and experts of CSS exams to donate some time and deliver a lecture once a week to young students.
I always say that Karachi is a very dynamic city with so many opportunities. I was once talking with a junior diplomat in the consulate of an Arab country, he told me that his grandfather used to come to Karachi to watch movies and enjoy life here, there being no cinema houses in those countries then. I call upon everyone to make Karachi clean, all of us have maids and servants and every time they go out to dispose garbage, they should be directed not to throw the garbage into nullahs or on the footpaths. We must try to keep Karachi tidy and clean and we have to keep our city presentable through our own initiatives to make Karachi one of the best cities, if not in the world, then at least in the region.
To a question about anything being done to control events during the next rainy season Mr. Shalwani said that a lot of schemes are being undertaken to ensure that the big roads are not inundated like what happened this year. He lamented that a lot of haphazard planning and haphazard construction is going on and it is the fragmentation of power that is creating the mess, like if some areas which are not under the control of KDA, NOCs are given out by LDA or by Cantonment, etc. There is just no coordination and sometimes construction goes on in the riverbed onto the waterways of nullahs. We are trying to prepare new schemes and I hope the next monsoon will not be as horrible as the last one.
Moin Fudda, Member Board of Governors, asked a question relating to the I.I. Chundrigar Road project initiated at the time when Mr. Ishrat Hussain was the Governor State Bank of Pakistan. “When I was the Managing Director Karachi Stock Exchange, I had also given a handsome amount of money towards this project along with a number of banks. This happened to be a substantial amount of money. Nothing was ever done towards the project except for a lot of wall chalking that was removed. I think the money must be lying somewhere because no work was done.” He suggested that perhaps Mr. Shalwani could get his hands on this money and use it for his own tramline project.
Mr Shalwani said that he has already spoken about the tramline project going through I.I. Chundrigar Road and as far as the other project referred to by Mr. Fudda, about 10 months ago a meeting was held with the Governor SBP and Presidents of all the nationalised banks and private international banks in Karachi. We discussed about the total restoring and repair of all footpaths but the most important issue in I.I. Chundrigar Road is parking. A lot of banking sector people, especially from Shaheen Complex up to Habib Bank, continue to park there. We have tried to dissuade people from parking on footpaths and have fined and challaned many of them but the problem persists. I do not know anything about the money or the project but we are doing it through the Chief Minister’s grants to improve ten roads in Karachi of which I.I. Chundrigar is one.
Mr. Farooq Afzal asked about traffic management of Karachi, “if one looks at the roads and islands, there are so many U-turns that traffic gets disturbed and even damaged. Is anything being done about traffic management?” Mr. Shalwani answered that we need to stop these unnecessary U-turns and we have to get used to going the long way instead of taking short cuts. We can see even people driving cars going the wrong way in total violation of rules. We really need good traffic police and those leading the traffic police must be innovative and take initiative. I agree with you that the U-turns must go.
Dr. Azim asked a question about the Circular Railway. Mr Shalwani answered that this project is on the cards, now we have the order of the Supreme Court and we have two choices. Do we restore the old circular railway of 1960 or do we make a light railway network which is the need of the day? A lot of work has already been done by Pakistan Railways and we now have 14 stations ready and the first loop of the KCR can be started within a few months while the entire loop would take some time because there are 24 crossings in the whole loop. Those days are gone when traffic used to be stopped by closing the gates (phatak) for a train to pass, it would be chaotic doing this today. Underpasses or flyovers would have to be made to enable trains pass without interrupting the flow of traffic for which planning is being done to be able to do this, if not in two months, in two years perhaps.
Mr. Raza Mahdi asked about fragmentation of power and whether there is any practical solution to bring this about? Mr. Shalwani responded by saying that a proposal has already been forward on the model of CDA in Islamabad and on that pattern we have to integrate all these departments at least for the miniscule functions.
Mr. Shalwani concluded by thanking everyone.
In his concluding remarks Mr. Ikram Sehgal said the participants have been very lucky for the candid views of Mr. Shalwani. However, he said that frankly speaking, despite Mr. Shalwani’s optimism, he did not see this happening in Karachi as there are vested interests where everyone is only interested in keeping his power. Unless draconian measures are taken, what Karachi needs is not an Administrator but a Lieutenant Governor who has all the powers of a Governor to administer the city, that is the major thing. Anyway, we are very grateful to you for such a candid and lucid exchange and we are hoping you get the support from the Federal govt and the Sindh govt but more than that, from all the constituent units that you have spoken about i.e. the KMC, KDA, DHA, Water Board, Clifton Cantonment Board, etc. My one advice to you is right from the beginning to please pick out one senior person each from these utilities to sit close to your office so you don’t have to go to their office every time there is a problem. When they are sitting in your vicinity you just have to tell that person about the problem and they can ring up their constituent unit and speak to them.
We wish you the best of luck and are very grateful to you.
