| July 15, 2002 | Monday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1423 |
Gwadar port: close supervision needed
A wrong does become right with time
Another plot to bury KCR?
Why not a public park?
Water scheme at Johi Branch
DADU: Those residing in the western part of the Dadu district depend mostly on agriculture but their misery is that they like many others in Sindh are most of the time in short supply of the commodity called water. During the last seven years the shortage has been so severe that these people have not been able sow any crop. The situation has been made worse because there has been no rain all these years. The drought has rendered useless whatever irrigation system the people have.
“I became testy with Judge Rumpff when he fell into the mistake made by so many white South Africans about the idea of a universal franchise. Their notion was that to exercise this responsibility, voters must be ‘educated.’ To a narrow-thinking person, it is hard to explain that to be ‘educated’ does not only mean being literate and having a B.A., and that an illiterate man can be a far more ‘educated’ voter than someone with an advanced degree.”
This is an excerpt from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. The scene is Treason Trial. Nelson Mandela is on his feet giving his testimony in the court:
Justice Rumpff: What is the value of participation in the government of a state of people who know nothing?
Nelson Mandela: My Lord, what happens when illiterate whites vote....
Justice Rumpff: Are they not subject as much to the influence of election leaders as children would be?
NM: No, My Lord, this is what happens in practice. A man stands up to contest a seat in a particular area; he draws up a manifesto, and he says,”These are the ideas for which I stand’; it is a rural area and he says,”I am against stock limitation’; then, listening to the policy of this person, you decide whether this man will advance your interests if you return him to parliament, and on that basis you vote for a candidate. It has nothing to do with education.
Justice Rumpff: He only looks to his own interests?
NM: No, a man looks at a man who will be able to best present his point of view and votes for that man.
It would be presumptuous on my part to even think that Gen Tanvir Naqvi, formerly of Pakistan Army and now the Chief Mentor, Guide and Philosopher of Gen Musharraf (that is what comes out very clearly from the newspaper accounts of what Musharraf said about Naqvi during his meeting with newspaper editors and columnists on Saturday), has not read Mandela’s autobiography. But then perhaps the chief of National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) had dismissed these observations of Mr. Mandela as being irrelevant to the issue on the grounds perhaps that while making them the great freedom fighter of modern era had in his mind the voters and not to the candidates. But if, as Mr. Mandela put it, an illiterate man could be a far more ‘educated’ voter than someone with an advanced degree, how could he be less responsible as an elected member of the parliament than one with a B.A. degree?
But then one should thank the Almighty for small mercies and be profoundly grateful to Gen Naqvi for not restricting the eligibility criteria to only the PMA graduates. Not even the Supreme Court could have done anything about it, if Gen Musharraf had issued such an order because in the land of pure today Musharraf’s word is the law and the judges who have taken oath to uphold this law (under the PCO) cannot do anything but give judicial cover to whatever he says is the law. This point was seemingly completely missed by those who had gone to the Supreme Court challenging Musharraf’s B.A. order.
According to the last national census there are only about two million graduates in the country and as many as 72 million voters (including 18-year olds). There are in all a total of 1,165 seats to be contested in the next elections (NA: 350, four PAs: 715 and the Senate: 100). There are said to be 20 major political parties in the field. Each political party would need at least two candidates for each constituency to cover for the unforeseen like deaths and disqualifications. Add to this the requirement that even office-bearers of political parties would have to be graduates, no matter what the level of the office. This pushes up the demand for graduates by manifolds against their limited availability. And then by August 5, they have to submit all their accounts and prove to the Election Commission that they have held elections for all the party offices from top to the grassroots level.
All this rigmarole makes one very, very suspicious of the intentions of the government. Is the military regime serious about holding the elections? Perhaps it wants to force the mainstream political parties to boycott the elections failing which it perhaps is thinking of making the whole thing look totally impossible to manage and then go to the Supreme Court to ask for a five-year extension of the existing mandate. But why is it afraid of elections? Is it because of Junta’s nightmarish experience with the referendum? Or maybe it is not satisfied with the partnership role Naqvi has given to the Army in the proposed amendments. May be it wants to further amend the constitution so as to make it totally subservient to the Army beyond an iota of doubt even after an elected parliament is put in place. Why this total no-confidence in the elected representative? Is it because the Army leadership has accepted on its face value the self- inflicted lie that all the past military take-overs were instigated by the civilian politicians and then has come to the false conclusion that once the Army is given a place of unquestioned eminence in the domestic political equation, military coups would stop for all times to come?
But then what was Governor General Ghulam Muhammad who invited General Ayub Khan to join the civilian cabinet in 1954? Ghulam Mohammad was a civil servant-turned GG by a stroke of luck. He was certainly not a politician. What was President Major Iskander Mirza, who invited Ayub to take over in 1958? Mirza in fact was two-in-one — a civil as well as military bureaucrat — but not a politician by any stretch of imagination. What was Field Marshal Ayub Khan who invited Gen Yahya Khan to take over in 1969? And every one and his auntie knows that the PNA and the PPP had reached a settlement on the night of July 4, 1977 when the then COAS, Gen Ziaul Haq, walked in without any rhyme or reason. And then which politician was urging President Gen Ziaul Haq who was also the COAS at that time and already in the saddle to dismiss Prime Minister Junejo in May 1988? And what was President Ghulam Ishaq Khan who dismissed the first governments of Benazir and Nawaz Sharif? He too was not a politician. In fact he remained a super duper civil servant to his finger tips till the last day in office. Even Leghari who dismissed the second government of Benazir and lost to the politics of second Nawaz government was a born civil servant. Using his infamous batch of 1965, he had made it impossible for the second governments of Benazir and Nawaz to work properly. And in 1999, it was actually the personality clash between the then ISI chief Gen Ziauddin and his former deputy Gen Aziz Khan who had by then become the CGS that had led to the crisis and the October 12 takeover. Then why blame the poor politicians and then build a sand castle on a totally false argument? — Onlooker
WORK on the Gwadar deep-water port, the third commercial port of the country, is in full swing. The Chinese Harbours Organisation is building the first phase, with a soft Chinese loan of $198 million. The remaining $50 million will be provided by the government of Pakistan in the form of rupee component to meet the local cost of construction.
The port will have three berths, with facilities, to commission the port. The Chinese hope to complete the work much before the stipulated three-year period. Also in the case of the Saindak copper and gold project they had completed the project six months before the schedule despite the hurdles created by the vested interests in Islamabad.
However, the Gwadar Harbour Authority, is based in Karachi, over 400km away from the construction site, with a retired navy officer as its head. The government had committed the same mistake while building the Pasni fish harbour when Karachi was chosen as its headquarters. Project directors seldom visited Pasni and, thus, for lack of proper supervision a structural defect in the design of this harbour was allowed to pass. The result: a permanent nuisance in the shape of silt-up in the navigational channel.
It cost the public exchequer tens of millions of rupees to clear the silt in the navigational channel annually. This normally included the kickbacks to the officials of the Pasni Fish Harbour Authority in the past. For some officials it remained the only charm for heading the Pasni Fish Harbour Authority. Similarly, the Gwadar Port Authority has located its offices in Karachi and performing the job of remote control to oversee the construction work. There was a general resentment against this policy of the federal government providing all the comforts to the officials of the authority in Karachi and that too at the cost of public exchequer.
Secondly, the local people are being ignored in the initial phase of construction, making the claims of the government hallow that it launched the project to reduce the level of poverty, provide jobs to the local people, preferably from Gwadar and its surroundings. The jobs were handed over to petty contractors by the concerned authorities. They are hiring non-locals and aliens even for the jobs reserved for unskilled people.
When President Gen Pervez Musharraf performed the ground-breaking ceremony of the Gwadar deep-water port on March 22 last, he had made a specific pledge to provide job opportunities to the local people, preferably to the residents of Gwadar. He had dispelled the doubts of the Nazim of Gwadar, Babu Gulab Baluch, who had expressed his fears that there would be a massive influx of the aliens from all corners of the region, reducing the local inhabitants to a tiny minority on their own homeland.
Seemingly, the fears are becoming a reality as the officials of the port authority are least concerned about it. Similarly, the governor, in his private meetings, had always pledged that he would follow the Dubai model for building the Gwadar deep-water port. The Chinese are busy in their own work and they are least bothered to have proper interaction with the local people, mainly the elected representatives.
The Gwadar Nazim has confirmed that he was ignored by the Gwadar Port Authority officials who did not respond to his complaints and suggestions. He thought that it was a violation of the instructions and public commitments of the president of Pakistan. Many other representatives of the people have complained in this regard that legitimate interests of the local people are not being looked after by the federal or the provincial government.
Many people who had left their places in the hope of getting jobs with the Gwadar port or the National Highway Authority building the coastal highway are now despaired that there is no one to care for them. The coastal highway is being built from two directions, Gwadar end and the Lakra end, so that it is complete within the three years — with the first phase of the Gwadar port.
Another problem is more serious. There is a complete ban on the sale and purchase of land in Gwadar prior to the preparation of the Master Plan for the future port city. Buying and selling of hundreds of acres of barren land for commercial purposes is being witnessed daily, involving aliens. The provincial government is not able to enforce the ban on the sale and purchase of land in the Gwadar township.
According to information, about 1,000 acres of land close to the Governor’s rest house (Gwadar) was sold to a private party. Powerful people are said to be involved in violating the ban on the sale and purchase of land.
THE other day, the Punjab government issued a notification for the denationalization of nationalized educational institutions and their transfer to their previous managements. It would be relevant here to quote the operative parts of the notification.
On the terms and conditions of service for teachers working in nationalized institutions, the notification lays down:
2 (a) The staff of these institutions shall continue to be government servants and their pay and other emoluments, as admissible to them in government (service) shall be paid by the private management until they are adjusted in other institutions. The staff will, however, have the option to stay on with the new management if both parties agree to such an arrangement, in which case conditions in para 2(c) will apply.
(b) The government will continue to pay salaries and allowances to those employees who opt to remain in government service at the rate as admissible to them after they report to the government for further adjustment.
(c) The staff of the institutions privatized shall be allowed to exercise the option following privatization for continuation in government service or that of private managements.
(d) The employees who opt for government service will continue to enjoy the medical facilities as in government service.
(e) The government will transfer all accumulated benefits of pension, levies and other entitlements in case of those who have served in government for more than 10 years and want to serve under private managements, (exercising) their own option.
(f) Deduction on account of house-building, cars, motorcycles and other advances and loans will continue (to be made) till their liquidation. In case of transfer of pensionary benefits, such deductions will be made in lump sum.
3 (a) The institutions will continue to operate on the same site and the use of the land/building of an institution shall not be altered for any purpose other than education. The old owners/managements (will) agree in writing to forego all claims of all kinds against the government. The government agrees to transfer, free of cost, all additions and alterations made in the building of the institution and equipment supplied to the institution during the period of nationalization.
(b) College/school funds collected from the students of the institution shall stay with the new management to be utilized for the purpose for which they were collected.
4 (a) The management of a privatized institution shall not levy any extra tuition fee or charges on the students who are enrolled in the institution at the time of the re-transfer until they pass out.
(b) The new management will have the discretion to fix fee structures as deemed appropriate in respect of the students who are enrolled by it after the re-transfer.
5 (a) The privatized educational institutions shall, in their respective classes, use the same medium of instruction and follow the same curriculum in the subject of Islamiat as is for the time being laid down for comparable classes in the institutions maintained by the government.
(b) The provisions of para 5(a) in so far as they relate to the medium of instruction shall not apply to any such institution in relation to students who receive instruction therein for the purpose of preparing themselves for an examination conducted by an institution outside Pakistan.
(c) The new managements will ensure that nothing against the Pakistan ideology is taught to the students.
I have just made a few minor changes here and there.
Otherwise the text follows the official version as notified on July 8.
The decision to nationalize private educational institutions was taken impulsively by the late Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early seventies. It marked the beginning of the end of many centre of excellence. For instance, Islamia College, Railway Road, Lahore, was managed by the Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam. It rose to become an institution which played a pivotal role in the Pakistan Movement. Likewise, the Kinnaird College for Women acquired a reputation which was the envy of all colleges for girls throughout South Asia. It produced teachers and students who were the pride of all British India.
That the college continued to attract good students during the post-nationalization period was due in no small measure to its faculty led by a principal who was determined to maintain the Kinnaird tradition alive. Kinnaird has been exceptionally lucky in that nationalization did not bring in its wake any deterioration in teaching or learning standards. But Kinnaird is an exception which proves the rule. Elsewhere, nationalized schools and colleges haven’t been so fortunate.
After the early euphoria of nationalization, academic institutions began a headlong journey downhill. The teacher became a ‘goverment servant’ and like all other government servants, he was soon drawn into the rat race for grades or pay scales. To move from grade 17 to 18 and beyond became an end in itself. For a teacher, nationalization came to mean, above everything else, the freedom not to work. It came in time to mean freedom not to teach in the classroom but to open tuition centres.
A gentleman, writing in our correspondence columns on Saturday says:
“They (the teachers) may continue to work (after privatization) — as they won’t have any alternative — but it would be unfair to expect proper performance from them when the sword of termination of their services will always be dangling over their heads.”
Nothing of the sort will happen as it is clearly laid down in the notification from which I have quoted [2(a)]. Further, why should the fear of dismissal bother a teacher who is devoted to his profession? A good teacher is always valued by his employers.
Then he says: “Let’s not unsettle the settled issues.” This, I dare say, is the Indian line of argument. Kashmir? Let’s forget about it. It is a settled issue. My submission is that a wrong done 30 years ago can still by undone in 2002. A wrong never becomes right with the passage of time.
And then there is a threat: the government must not open “a new front — and that, too, against the teachers,” implying thereby that the latter will resist the nationalization move. Well, there’s some real danger here. This government has a habit of going back on its word — the rationalization of the prosecution procedure under the blasphemy law and the literal undoing of the system of joint electorates. Now if the teachers of the denationalized educational institutions launch a campaign for a revision of the July 8 notification, it may give in yet again.
I hope to goodness this will not happen. But who knows? As for me, I find nothing at all wrong with the notification. Moreover, the Punjab education Minister told a news conference in Lahore on Friday that there were about 60,000 teaching and non-teaching vacancies in schools and colleges in the province.
“There will be no problem in adjusting all government employees serving in nationalized institutions after they have been denationalized.” If this is true, it leaves no room for teachers to launch any protest campaign, and if they do, they certainly will have no public support, provided the provincial government sticks to its decision and enforces it firmly.
One thing worried me on Saturday, though. The institution or whatever is left of it and which requires denationalization above everything else is the F. C. College, Lahore.
The Punjab education minister told his press conference that apart from the Anjuman-i-Himayat-Islam which had applied for a re-transfer of three colleges and nine schools, no one had come forward to claim the F. C. College. This is bad. Nor have I heard anything about the Kinnaird College. I hope the situation will improve soon.
ABOUT this restriction that candidates for the provincial and national assemblies must be graduates, I am reminded of Akbar Allahabadi who once wrote:
Kaha Majnu se yeh Laila Ki Maan ne
Ke beta teu agar karley MA pass Fauran beayah doon Laila ko tujh se
Bila diqqat mein ban jaoon teri saas
....
Yeh acchi qadrdani aap ne ki
Mujhe samjha heh koi Harcharan Das?
....
Yehi theri jo shart-i-wasl-i-Laila
Toa phir istifa mera ba hasrat-o-yaas
Well, many of our erstwhile legislators must be sending in their resignations to President P. Musharraf.
WHEN the bureaucrats decide to throttle a plan or project they set up a committee. This has been the studied strategy to strangulate the Karachi Circular Railway. For years the baboos have been playing this game. This time they have gone two steps ahead of their set gait. They have set up not one but three committees! All told, their members would number more than a dozen. They include every category of bureaucrats, experts, sociologist, financiers and what have you.
It is certainly time some sane person took charge of this protracted bad joke. Some very obvious questions should be asked. First, why has it taken so many years for the government, ministry, department or institution to get the KCR on the rails and chugging? There was a time when the KCR was a functioning service. If it was not working well its working should have been improved. They killed it, instead.
If the bureaucrats concerned have failed, which they manifestly have, the first thing now to do is to identify them and, after due process, put them on the mat. It is an outrage on common sense, and an offence against the citizens, in Karachi that a vital service has been done to death in full public view and nobody is being held responsible and given the punishment for such colossal betrayal of public interest.
What simply passes comprehension is that at this late moment these bureaucrats are still engaged in an effort to “clarify and define the parameters, and modify the route plan on the basis of viability...” This clearly means they have not yet taken the first step. When this be depth of their ignorance — they do not yet know the “parameters” of the KCR project — what on earth have they been doing all this while?
Among the many marvels of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo we hear of a new committee to “review the study prepared by the Consultants”. Now one should like to know when the Consultants’ study was received? By whom? Why the required study has not yet been made? Whose orders were awaited so far? In this context there is a mention of the President. As far as one can remember, the President is on record having promised action on the project to revive the KCR. It now appears that they have not done anything tangible in this regard. Why not, pray?
We are being told that another new committee is to “identify and assess additional traffic due to the latest demographic changes and addition of new areas. One should expect that these changes, that are a perpetual process in a living society, are taken note of and duly identified as a matter of continuing routine. Fact and figures in this regard should be available all the time, because these should be updated on a daily basis. Happily this committee is now commanded to report by July 15, which is today!
In the context of the KCR we are wading in thick and dense clouds of confusion. There is no longer any doubt that all of it has been deliberately created. Going by the track record of the officialdom involved in this veritable scandal, there is little hope of any progress in the right direction with all the mock labours of these three brand new committees. Let us, therefore, begin at the beginning.
A high level independent inquiry should be instituted into the real truth behind this calculated dilly-dallying, evidently designed to bury the KCR. It was once a going concern. Instead of developing, expanding and gradually modernising it, its enemies set about pulling it apart. Urban rail transport is the lifeline of all civilized cities in the world today. Why not in Karachi? This question needs an answer.
Another question propels us into a very shady area. What is the nexus between the road transport lobby and the undertakers waiting to bury the KCR? This is not an idle question. The citizens should like the relevant authorities to disclose the following facts: How many buses are plying on Karachi roads today? How many of these buses do possess valid documents? It is strongly asserted by knowledgeable observers that thousads of these public buses do not satisfy legal requirements.
Again, how many of the bus operators in Karachi are tax- payers? What is the amount of income and road taxes collected from bus operators in Karachi? How many of these are registered in Karachi? What is the truth about bus operators habitually violating the requirements of their route permits? Bus transporters openly alleged that they are compelled to make under the counter payments to traffic police staff on a regular, permanent and compulsory basis. This allegation has not been denied to date.
It is by now an established belief in public perception that the tragedy of the KCR is the result of a conspiracy by a number of kindred vested interests. The big-wigs of this syndicate feel that if an efficient urban rail service is properly developed eighty per cent of the commuters would shift to the railway facility. This shift will take place for some excellent reasons. A properly-managed urban rail service would be much more safe, swift, reliable and considerably less expensive, too.
Apart from the operators of the present wayward and appalling mismanaged road transport, the traffic police will be the loser of their income which, according to some observers runs literally into millions. By now it is clear to everyone that there is a good deal of shady currents behind this KCR debacle. Let somebody among the wiseacres listlessly going through the emotions answer a very simple and straight questions: When all major cities in the world can successfully and profitably manage an urban rail network, why not the brilliant bureaucrats of Karachi?
This is not the first time this question has been addressed to whom it may concern. Answer still awaited.
The most precious commodity in Karachi is undoubtedly land. Whether the demand for land is natural or it is just created those having a vested interest is another debate altogether. The fact that open spaces in the inner-city areas are fast disappearing is quite disturbing.
One such case is that of the Gutter Baghicha. Located on the Manghopir Road near Garden, the 1,017 acre area was initially meant to grow vegetables for the city needs, a need it fulfilled for quite some time even after Independence. However, as the value of land soared, that purpose was soon lost sight of.
Today over 40 per cent of the farmland has been taken over by the katchi abadis, marble factories and other industries, while another 18 per cent is being used for amenity purposes, including a sewage treatment plant, an asphalt plant, educational institutions, shops, etc.
The rest of the 42 per cent land is still lying vacant, and that is what is attracting attention of the land grabbers. For the factory-owners around the area this empty plot is too good to be left alone. They have been after the city government for months now to get allotments for the expansion of their factories.
Obviously, this cannot be done legally, so the usual backdoor tactics are being employed. The fear that the city government might be lured into earning some money out of the plot is further heightened by the fact that it is not taking any interest in developing the place into something more pleasant such as a park.
Whatever is left of the farmland has become a dumping ground for garbage as well as the factory waste. Judging by the piles of garbage heaped there, it is clear the municipal workers have never set a foot here. The residents allege the garbage dumps are being deliberately left to rot so as to make grounds for declaring the open space a commercial area.
Needless to say, the city can very well do with a park amid its otherwise congested and polluted environs. It is time someone responsible looked into the matter and decided the fate of the Gutter Baghicha in the best public interest.
It has been a month since the people of the city have been deprived of one of their favourite pastimes: whiling away the hours at the Frere Hall park with their families. Following the horrifying bomb blast outside the US consulate last month, which also did considerable damage to the park and Frere Hall itself, the garden has been closed to the public. An eerie silence now descends over this once popular haunt after sundown.
The park’s closure has created a huge void in the life of its regular visitors. The groups of card players, Suzuki-loads of noisy families, students from the PACC and the jogging uncles and aunties from the locality have all had to find some alternative to this centrally located and relatively well-tended venue.
Perhaps the greatest victims of the park’s closure are the city’s booksellers and book lovers. Thousands would throng to the park on Sunday to visit the weekly book mela held there. The dozens of stalls would attract large numbers of browsers and customers eager to find that special bargain or that rare bestseller. Computer geeks would rub shoulders here with housewives leafing through lavishly illustrated coffee table books, while men straight out of a mushaira would haggle over the price of some deewan or the other.
Many of the booksellers have been forced to relocate near Regal Chowk following the park’s closure. However, that spot is often the favourite target of the police, who are bent on zealously removing the booksellers in the name of some misplaced anti-encroachment drive. The makeshift pavement shops — many stocked with cheap second-hand books — are invaluable for the scores of poor students, retired people and passers-by, who come here hunting for bargains.
Most cities would encourage such a spontaneous mushrooming of book shops and promote such activity. The pavement booksellers hardly disturb pedestrians or obstruct traffic, specially given that they operate on Sundays when Saddar is fairly deserted. The authorities, however, have taken great pains to harass the booksellers and drive them away. With the harassment at Regal and the closure of Frere Hall, the city centre has lost its charm for book lovers on their weekly holiday.
With open spaces and book shops becoming rare commodities in Karachi, the closure of the Frere Hall gardens has made the city a poorer place. While one can understand the very real security concerns, there must be some way out of this sorry state of affairs. Surely, there must be an alternative to shutting down the city’s prime park just because it happens to be sandwiched between the office and the residence of a foreign diplomat.
A strange kind of lull has descended over Karachi’s social and cultural scene with the advent of summer. The pages of the city’s social calendar suddenly have a lot of blank spaces where once they were crammed with happenings.
The rich and famous are away for the summer, bumping into one another on London’s Oxford street or at some hip hang-out in New York. The ones who failed in the race for a visa have all headed for the vicinity of Nathiagali, the hippest spot to be seen in on the home soil. Many of the less well-off middle class ones have given in to their children’s demands and trekked off on the trip north to take advantage of the school holidays.
The less fortunate left behind are now coping with living in a socio-cultural desert and bracing themselves for the upcoming dose of other people’s holiday tales while sifting enviously through photos of friends sunbathing on exotic beaches, or posing with a local jeep driver at Lake Saiful Malook.
Meanwhile, there are no big art exhibitions because those with the cash are busy spending it abroad. There are no film or theatre festivals, no fashion shows, no grand charity balls, no grand launches of new shops, restaurants or malls and not too many private parties either. The pity is that the city’s weather has suddenly taken a turn for the better. The thick clouds overhead are promising monsoon rains while the pleasant breeze has made life more than bearable after the relentless heatwave of the past couple of months.
For the ordinary people of the city, however, the entertainment scene is increasingly revolving round the seaside. A trip to Seaview seems to be catching up on a visit to the Quaid’s mausoleum or a trip to the funfair at Clifton as the most popular option for a day out.
Karachiites may be going through a summer lull in terms of cultural activities and may be a little nervous following the bomb blasts, but the crowds cavorting at the beaches are a reassuring reminder that while the city may be down, it is still out too.
On a grimmer note, perhaps it is time to ask this question: Is suicide a psychological phenomenon that relates to an imbalance in the mental state of a person, or could there be justifiable sociological reasons behind the extreme action? Many would like to believe that the presence of both or one or the other could trigger suicide. Indeed, in many cases, this may be true.
Take, for instance, the case of Omar Asghar Khan. It has now been proved by circumstantial evidence that he had committed suicide out of frustration. A young man with exceptional qualities ended his life only because he could not bear the pressure of the circumstances anymore. Similarly, there are some other cases which point to the same conclusion. Jilted lovers have been known for ages to commit suicide. Betrayals can drive people to death in no time. But this is not the whole truth.
If one were to believe the reports appearing in the newspapers, most men and women who commit suicide opt for death because they cannot face harsh economic realities.
Many of them suffer long periods of unemployment and depression. When all efforts to find some ways of earning a decent livelihood fail and life becomes unbearable, people hang themselves or consume poison.
This, by and large, is the truth about the suicide cases that have been reported in Karachi in recent months. According to a report in this newspaper on Saturday, a teenager burnt himself to death in Pak Colony. A Karachi eveninger printed a picture of another young man sitting on a pavement in front of the Karachi Press Club protesting against continued unemployment. These are not isolated cases. They are manifestations of a syndrome plaguing our society.
Seen in this backdrop, the government’s claims about an economic recovery and the bulging foreign exchange coffers appear unreal. Nobody knows how this affliction can be remedied. Certainly not through deceptive rhetoric and hollow slogans.—Karachian
Previous governments which could have built a reservoir or a dam to help the people of this area did not do any such things. However, the Sindh government recently approved a scheme to set up a pump at RD-77 of the Johi branch to lift water to cultivate barren land in the area. For this it has released Rs36.4 million from the head of the Annual Development Programme.
The Johi branch was built in 1932 for the dry crop only. Its total length is 94km. It will receive 240 more cusecs from the RD-210 of MNV drain through this scheme. The total discharge of the Johi branch is 600 cusecs but because of the shortage of water it is not receiving its full run of water, thus forcing the tail-enders to face difficulties, as well as keeping the waterways originating from the Johi branch dry all the time.
Initially, the Johi branch would receive water for irrigation from the Dadu Canal through a system bridge called Kari Mori. This bridge worked from 1932 to 1982. Later a new one was built over the MNV drain RD-210 but the concerned irrigation officials/experts did little to work out a system to lift water from MNV drain to the Johi branch to increase its water level.
The new scheme was initiated on May 15 and is scheduled to be completed by Sept 15. It would be in operation from July 15 to Sept 15 every year, with 12 pumps lifting water 24 hours to make up for the shortage of irrigation water in the area.
The total discharge of MNV drain is 2,100 cusecs, coming from Balochistan. This water of MNV drain falls into the Manchhar Lake at zero point. The MNV drain water which is salty and poisonous is changed into sweet water for a brief period from July 15 to Sept 15 because the disposable water of the Rice Canal is mixed with the Dadu Canal water.
On completion the water pumping scheme would irrigate 200,000 acres in the western part of the Johi taluka and the K. N. Shah taluka of the Dadu district. Moreover, the people of this area will get potable water through various the waterways.
Hundreds of families belonging to the tribes of Babr, Jamali, Rodhnani, Shahani, Leghari, Rustamani, Lund, Lakha, Soomra, Qambrani, Chandio, Kalhoro, Chakrani, Marri, Gabol, Solangi, Bozdar, Panhwar, Rind, etc, which had left their places in view of the severe shortage of water are now returning in the hope that the new scheme would give them enough water to keep their land fertile.