Daily Times
July 25, 2021
The Karachi Port Trust (KPT) is conducting a major study to affect various port development plans and improve the marine ecology within its jurisdiction.
Karachi Harbour encloses an area of some 62 square kilometres stretching from the Sandspit in the west to Chinna Creek in the east. The major changes have taken place in the Eastern Backwater (Chinna Creek) and the Western Backwater due to the continuous process of reclamation and encroachment, resulting in reduction in the tidal volume of the whole backwater system.
In July 1999, the Karachi Port Trust conducted a feasibility study of deepening the upper harbour and approach channel by HR Wallingford, which included Eastern Backwaters (Chinna Creek area) and Western Backwaters having mudflats and mangroves. “After passing of two decades, it has become necessary to conduct [a] feasibility study for determining the existing hydraulic regime in [the] KPT’s areas and water channels for easily flow of s
The writer is an architect.
WHENEVER Karachi floods, the government announces the widening of its nullahs that carry the floodwater to the sea. The decision of the extent of widening is taken in an ad hoc manner. As a result of recent decisions, 5,916 houses along Gujjar nullah, 1,049 along Mehmoodabad nullah, and 992 along Manzoor Colony nullah are to be demolished apart from commercial units. The affectees are not being allocated land or funds for rehabilitating themselves and are becoming homeless, having been declared encroachers by the judiciary in Pakistan.
Affected communities argue that their encroachments are just one of the reasons why Karachi floods. Other reasons are that the nullahs are choked and as such cannot function to capacity, inevitably flooding the areas through which they pass. Communities also claim they have paid corrupt government officials for the land they sit on and in addition paid billions of rupees for legal electricity, gas and municipal connection
Bahria Town Karachi’s outline superimposed on satellite imagery of New York to give a sense of the spatial scale of the project. A land use change over such a large area is not a part of any official plan | Mapping by Rida Khan (Advocacy planner, urban designer)
Every day in the print and electronic media there is news about the terrible physical, social and municipal governance issues of Karachi and how they affect the lives of ordinary citizens. These conditions are blamed on a variety of factors, most of them political in nature. It is argued that if a proper local government system is implemented, these problems will be overcome.