KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal has put forward a 6-point plan to resolve the lingering socio-economic and administrative issues of Karachi.
Kamal shared the plan during a press conference at PSP head office on Tuesday. The plan says that if the census were conducted in a transparent manner, the population of Karachi will stand up to 30 million. In this proportion, the number of seats in the National and Provincial Assemblies of Karachi should be increased. With a population of 36 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 64 National Assembly seats, while a number of intellectuals and writers, including the Chief Justice of Pakistan, have said Karachi's population is by no means less than 30 million.
With the 18th Amendment, where the district city and UC were supposed to be autonomous, the chief ministers have become independent under the guise of provincial autonomy. At present it's at the discretion of chief minister to decide whether or not to fund a district.
Kamal recommended transfer of these powers and resources to the lowest level of district, town, tehsil and UCs. The NFC Award fund is spent by the chief minister on his own will. These funds are not reaching to the district, town and UC level. Therefore, Kamal recommended that PFC Award should be launched on the same formula as the NFC so that the funds could reach to the districts, towns and UCs of the province. The federal government should play its role in this regard. Funds received by the provinces from the federation are not CM's private resources, but they are of the people of this province, they should be transferred to the grass root level in the larger public interest.
The Sindh chief minister's decision of merging Master Plan Department with Sindh Building Control Authority in 2013 should be annulled and the department should be restored to its original status of independent and autonomous body.
The CM's move is like the watchman has been subordinated to the thief. Division of Karachi into 7 districts should be abolished and previous status of one district and 18 towns should be rehabilitated. Karachi has always been a district which the PPP, in view of its traditional bigotry and political interests, cut off the administrative connection of one district with another. If a nullah passes through two different districts and if one portion is cleaned, while other is not, then nothing will be achieved.
The PPP's justification that people had a problem with government offices being far away is not correct because previously there were towns and all their work was done through elected representatives sitting in their areas and the town offices were closer to the district offices.?
There should be one head of municipal services of the city. All 18 municipal services of cantonment board, DHA, KPT, Port Qasim, MDA, Site Limited, Railways, Civil Aviation and other should be de-notified in compliance with the supreme court orders, and be made a part of the city district government headed by the elected city Mayor. In this case, land control will remain with all concerned agencies.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
Comments
Comments are closed.