KARACHI: Administrator Karachi Murtaza Wahab has noted that despite contributing 60 percent of the total domestic supply of gas, Sindh province is being subjected to the worst gas load shedding and other supply disruptions as well.
While addressing at a meeting of FPCCI, he also informed the session that Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has enhanced its capacity to pick up solid waste from Karachi to 7000 tonnes per day and he is striving hard, given the scarce financial resources, to achieve optimal capacity as soon as possible.
Administrator Karachi also apprised that plan for Karachi Circular Railway will be revealed in a month and in a 24-month time; Red Line project will be operational with the help of Asian Development Bank (ADB).
He criticised the changes and amendments carried out in Karachi’s Master Plan during the tenures of his various predecessors; as he feels that they did not plan for the future generations and gave up in front of various political pressures and expediencies of their times.
Murtaza Wahab called upon a unified and coherent approach through the means of taking ownership of the shortcomings and issues by all the stakeholders – federal government, provincial administration, KMC, business community, bureaucracy, judicial system and general public to resolve the chronic and myriad issues of Karachi.
He expressed his profound concerns over the chronically abysmal state of affairs of Karachi’s commercial infrastructure, civic amenities, poor law & order, grossly-insufficient public transport, accumulation of solid waste across the length and breadth of the city for years and, above all, gas load shedding, causing billions in losses to Karachi’s industry every month.
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh added that he has not seen such a neglect of any other country’s commercial, industrial, trade, financial and economic hub & most populous city. He noted that it gives a really bad impression to B2B delegations, investors, entrepreneurs and potential setting up of JVs.
Suleman Chawla, SVP FPCCI, apprised the audiences that the business, industry and trade community does not want to highlight the issues only but they want to discuss the pragmatic and strategic solutions with the administrator Karachi as well.
He called upon more allocations and transparent and equitable spending on Karachi from federal divisible pool and provincial budget for the metropolitan city of Karachi.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022