KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi chief and opposition leader in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), Saifuddin Advocate, on Saturday questioned why the city continued to be denied its rightful share of development funds despite contributing around 62 percent of federal revenue.
Addressing a post-budget press conference at Idara Noor-i-Haq, he demanded that the federal government announce a special package of at least Rs500 billion for Karachi and called on the Sindh government to allocate a minimum of Rs5 billion to each town in the upcoming provincial budget.
Saifuddin said Karachi was grappling with severe water shortages, inadequate sanitation, deteriorating roads and infrastructure, poor transport services, and mounting challenges in the education and health sectors.
Criticising the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), he said the party should have staged a walkout from the federal cabinet to protest what he described as grossly inadequate budget allocations for the city, if it was truly committed to Karachi’s rights.
On major development projects, he said the K-IV water supply scheme required at least Rs40 billion for timely completion but had received only Rs10 billion in the federal budget. Similarly, the Green Line Phase-II project needed Rs6 billion, yet only Rs1.9 billion had been allocated.
He noted that Rs20 billion had been set aside last year under the Urban Infrastructure Development Package without any significant work taking place on the ground. The same amount had been allocated again this year, but only Rs7.5 billion was expected to actually be released.
Saifuddin said the Board of Revenue had collected Rs3.256 trillion in taxes from Karachi in the previous financial year, compared to only Rs306 billion from the rest of Sindh.
He added that Karachi had been deprived of Rs3.22 trillion under the Octroi and Zila Tax formula, and criticised the stark gap between the Sindh government’s budget of over Rs3.5 trillion and the meagre development funds available to local governments in the city.
Calling for structural reform, he said no meeting of the Provincial Finance Commission had been held since 2008 and urged the Sindh government to immediately constitute the body to ensure fair distribution of resources.
The JI leader also criticised the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board for inefficiency and corruption, and demanded that its powers be transferred to towns and union councils.
He warned that the K-IV project, originally estimated at Rs25 billion in 2002 during the tenure of former city nazim Niamatullah Khan, had ballooned to Rs126 billion due to repeated delays. He added that even once water from K-IV reached Karachi, city-wide distribution would remain impossible without completing the augmentation project.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
Comments