| January 28, 2006 | Saturday | Zilhaj 27, 1426 |
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Banks and environment
Commercialization of Islamabad
‘Too many holidays’
‘Early learning in mother tongue’
Position holders
Wali Khan
Street crime
Shabby bogies
Bajaur attack
IPI gas pipeline
VIPs’ search in NY
Turbat jams
THIS is about the KPT fountain and the resultant environmental problems. The Environmental Protection Act 1997, clause 12, sub-clause 1, states that no proponent of a project shall commence construction or operation unless he has filed with the federal EPA an initial environmental examination (IEE) or environmental impact assessment (EIA) report and has obtained approval from federal agency. The need for conducting the EIA of such projects seems more justified after the Tasman Spirit incident in which the Karachi coastline received 30,000 tons of crude oil.
The Karachi coastline, which stretches over 135km, is facing severe pollution due to a combination of industrial, port, municipal, and transportation activities in the area. At present, according to the KWSB, 295-350 million gallons per day (MGD) of sewage is produced in Karachi out of which 20-45 MGD is treated by the official system and the rest (about 300 MGD) goes to the sea through open natural drains. The treatment plants of the KWSB have an installed capacity of 151.50 MGD.
Residential buildings in Clifton and Defence are sea-facing and there is a chance that they may be affected by the fountain water jet spray. The 500-metre water jet will spray hydrocarbon along with toxic chemicals and will affect visitors.
According to a World Bank report, most coastal pollution is concentrated in Karachi harbour owned by the KPT where an estimated 90,000 tons of oil products from vessels and port terminals are dumped every year. In addition, a common environmental problem associated with the shipping industry, dredging, is having a major impact. The dredged material is dumped out into sea to maintain the port. However, the KPT has no system for monitoring trace metal in the dredged spoil which is likely to further deteriorate the environment.
In view of the urgency of matter, instructions should be given to conduct a “rapid environmental assessment” of the fountain jet project to check the environmental aspects of the project. Moreover, the government should take mitigation measures pertaining to marine pollution. Mangroves should be re-planted, ocean dumping of wastes must be strictly banned, NEQS be forcefully implemented, and environmental policies on the shipping industry be made on an urgent basis and may be incorporated in legislation.
Another aspect of this project is the heavy maintenance cost of pumps, pump strainers/filters and water pipelines which will be choked frequently due to the polluted sea water with the passage of time and if that water is planned to be filtered, then again the cost factor cannot be neglected. How much better it would have been if the massive amount of Rs225 million was spent to save the waters of Karachi from pollution.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
THE world over it is an established practice for banks to ask project proponents to submit an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of a project before sanctioning the loan for the project. These banks, accordingly, have an environment department within their set-up, which is headed by a senior qualified environmental engineer with a support staff.
In Karachi, banks do not have any environment department in their set-up. Loans are sanctioned without assessing the environmental impacts of a project.
I request the State Bank governor to order setting up of an environment department in the State Bank, which must be headed by a senior qualified environment engineer. Likewise, all banks in Karachi should be directed to create environment departments, headed by senior qualified environment engineers. The banks should not sanction loans unless the project proponents submit EIA of the project to the bank, and the EIA is evaluated by the bank’s environment staff. This will be a creative action on the part of the SBP governor and will help to prevent environmental pollution in Karachi, Hyderabad and other cities.
MAJID ALI KHAN
Karachi
THE residents of Islamabad are perturbed to see homes being turned into shops and residential areas beginning to look like business centres. This is happening in F-6 opposite the Supermarket and in F-7 opposite Jinnah Supermarket, and around Raana Market in F-7. Has the CDA given its approval to these changes? We certainly hope not.
The mushrooming of private schools and colleges in the residential sectors of Islamabad has given rise to a myriad of problems such as traffic jams, car parking and pollution. Since there is not enough accommodation for people to live in and this has become a chronic problem in Islamabad, all houses should be used as homes to live in and not commercialized.
Will the authorities take steps to rectify the situation before it goes out of control? The prime minister has said (Dawn, Jan 9) that Islamabad will have a new plan making it a most beautiful city. Shouldn’t the CDA wait for the completion of the plan before denuding Islamabad of all its trees, as is being tragically done now?
M. NASIR SHAH
Islamabad
YOUR editorial “Too many holidays” (Jan 21) rightly points out that there are too many holidays on one pretext or the other.
For any nation education should be a vital issue and any break due to frequent holidays disturbs the entire educational calendar.
The position in industrial establishments is also the same. Thirteen festival holidays are allowed to workers in a calendar year.
This is besides 107 days of annual leave, casual leave, sick leave and weekly holidays. Apart from this, any worker can avail himself of 90 days’ leave without pay in a calendar year. One can imagine the cost in terms of total man-hours lost.
Those who matter in the corridors of power must pay attention to this aspect and find a way out to reduce the burden of festival and other holidays.
MALIK AYAZUL HAQUE
Acting secretary-general Employers’ Federation of Pakistan
REFERENCE Zubeida Mustafa’s article “Early learning in mother tongue” (Jan 18) and the letter by Ghulam Rasool Kalwar (Jan 24) in which he stresses preserving the beauty of diverse languages in Pakistan. If we look around different developed nations, we come across hardly any which encourage multiple languages as a medium for learning.
I think the need of the time is to create uniformity in Pakistan rather than further divide it by empowering several languages. Our focus should be on facilitating a common ground rather than further promoting ethnic diversity based on language. The Soviet Union couldn’t keep itself together and eventually broke down in pieces, whereas China has kept everyone under one flag because of one language.
I was raised in a Persian family and perhaps my first word was in Persian, went to school to learn Urdu and grew up in Punjab, but can never be considered a Punjabi by my Punjabi friends. I never feel comfortable with my cousins when they speak Pushto with their friends in Peshawar and ignore me by calling me Punjabi. In the end, I am still in search of my identity as a Pakistani, and perhaps will continue to do so till people stop asking me this question: “Where are you from?”
It would only be possible if we all start thinking like Pakistanis rather than Punjabis, Balochis, Pathans, Sindhis, etc, etc. The Quaid was wise enough to realize it decades ago, yet we sadly do not want to think out of the linguistic box. Let us create an environment where we can freely communicate with each other and marry each other without any thought of linguistic differences.
ALI JAFRI
Karachi
The Sindh education department recently held a cash award ceremony for position holders of the 2004 HSC examinations conducted by the Sindh education boards. The students were contacted by phone and told to be at Karachi’s D.J. College by 5pm. However, when we reached there at the appointed time, the decorators were just beginning to make the arrangements and we came to know that the ceremony was actually supposed to start at 7pm, this being the time that had been given to the chief guest. The award recipients, many of whom had come especially from the interior to attend the function, had no choice but to wait.
But this was the least of the inconveniences caused to the guests. Most of the students were given to understand that they had been invited to the ceremony along with their family members and so brought them along. The newspapers, including Dawn (Jan 23), clearly quoted the Sindh secretary as inviting the students along with their parents and family members. However, once there, the official in charge of the ceremony refused to acknowledge this invitation and insisted that the students had been asked to bring one parent only.
He went on to say that since the organizers were short of seating space, only one family member could sit with each student, and the rest would have to wait outside the “pindal” for the function to get over. The official could at least have been courteous and apologetic about it. But rude and insulting are the two words that describe his announcements.
Consequently, family members had no option but to leave. Still, the official made it a point of coming to each row and verifying the fact. The students, parents and family members felt greatly insulted by the way the organizers treated the very people the ceremony was supposed to honour. A simple solution to the problem could have been to place more chairs, instead of telling a “guest” to leave every time an education department official found himself without a seat. But then, punctuality, public relations, courtesy and sound management have probably never been the outstanding qualities of our education department.
MADIHA SAEED SHEIKH
Karachi
“ONLY a dead nation remembers its heroes when they die — real nations respect them when they are alive”. These were the golden words uttered by the great Bacha Khan of the Pukhtoons — Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan — nicknamed as the Frontier Gandhi.
I learnt about this quote during a lengthy discourse on the freedom struggle by Khan Wali Khan, with whom some of us had a special relationship as we happened to be class fellows of Dr Gulalae Wali Khan, who is herself an idealist and dreamer.
A section of the national press will lavish praise on this great legend for standing up against a string of dictators right from Ayub Khan to Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq to President Musharraf — perhaps it was in his blood, as was resistance to the Kalabagh dam and the Afghan war and his support for detente with India and a resolution of the Kashmir dispute.
One can identify the unifying strain of resistance against injustice and inequality in all these struggles. The Kalabagh dam seems to unify nationalists of all hues and strains against the World Bank-led hegemony of international consortiums to plunder the resources of Third World nations in the name of development and progress — and giving them in return a legacy of debt.
Kashmir and the Pakistan-India détente was Wali Khan’s theme as was Bacha Khan’s. Now with the end of the Cold War, the subcontinent offers an opportunity for a big market for the western world. For nationalists, the perpetual conflict in the region kept them from their due position as major players on the world scene. Strangely enough, with western prodding, India and Pakistan are dancing the proverbial foxtrot (despite a few missed steps) but the iron wall on the western (Afghan) border remains as high as ever. One can dance the bhangra with fellow Punjabis across the border, but Pukhtoons will remain divided along the Durand Line and cannot do the Atanh together. Bacha Khan’s or Wali Khan’s dream of a united Pukhtoon nation remains unfulfilled.
The Afghan conflict came to be seen as a defining moment in Afghan politics as well as Pakistan’s. Wali Khan like his compatriots had objected to superpower meddling in the region, which in his words would bleed the Pukhtoons. Watching Waziristan and Bajaur and the rest of the NWFP, this prophecy seems to have come true. Now the religious right seems more vociferous in anti-Americanism than the left was during the Cold War years.
Wali Khan said goodbye to politics after his defeat by Maulana Hasan Jan (a Hikmatyar ally) due to the shenanigans of the ISI during the 1990 elections. He simply bowed out gracefully and when asked he said he had no place when mullahs and ISI decided our destiny in politics.
Fifteen years on — one wonders who has had the last laugh. Perhaps Wali Khan is no more with us but his sagacity and vision shall guide future generations — that is, if they can avoid the follies and traps that he and the great Bacha Khan warned us against.
ADIL ZAREEF
Peshawar
IN 1997 and 1998 I was robbed by a young man and deprived of money at gunpoint. I was able to foil two subsequent attempts. In 2004, five minutes after leaving my home in Federal B Area, armed youth snatched my new car and mobile phone given to me by my company.
In December 2005, while in a traffic jam in Liaquatabad, a man with a gun knocked on my window and deprived me of my mobile phone and cash. I reported this to the police the next day. Then, on Jan 17 this year, my mobile phone was snatched at gunpoint on I.I. Chundrigar Road by two young men. As the phone was issued to me by my office and was insured, I had to inform the police.
I am a self-made person who has just begun to receive the returns of my hard work spread over 30 years. One should feel the trauma and agony I have been subjected to as a result of these frequent incidents.
In a recent TV interview, both the federal and Sindh interior ministers claimed that street crime had been brought down by 30 per cent. Perhaps they were trying to make me laugh away my miseries.
KHALILUR REHMAN
Karachi
I happened to wait at the level-crossing on Karachi’s West Wharf road around 5pm and a train passed which had about eight or nine shabby bogies. Each bogey had one or two passengers in it. Why cannot we have just two to three clean bogies in the train which will pass quickly through the level-crossing and also save bogies from unnecessary wear and tear?
COL (retd) ANWAR JAN BABAR
Karachi
I READ with great sorrow the news of the US attack on Bajaur which resulted in the death of 18 innocent Pakistanis. The outrage felt by the people of Pakistan is hard to express in words. In the past too the US had committed such atrocities in the border areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
We need to tell the US administration in clear words that Pakistan will stop cooperating with it in this so-called “war on terror” if the US continues to harm innocent civilians.
The US refusal to apologize and pay compensation for the losses suffered by the people is the result of sheer arrogance. There should be zero tolerance for such acts of state terrorism. Western states which do not support such aggression and the people of the United States need to put pressure on the Bush administration to refrain from acts of terrorism.
TALAT A. WIZARA
Department of International Relations, University of Karachi
OUR prime minister (touring America) has said that due to the global strategic situation Pakistan will not resort to hasty decisions in relation to the proposed IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline.
This indicates that there is something fishy going on. Is Pakistan about to abandon the useful project under American pressure? If so, then what actually is in the pipeline? Are we going to have it in a big way? This way we have no hope of independent existence hence onwards especially when seen in the context of the recent US attack at Damadola (Bajaur Agency) and future threats?
SARDAR M. BASHIR KHAN
Rawalpindi
AFTER the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the US immigration staff are overreacting in physical searching of visitors arriving from Pakistan and are unable to differentiate between a possible suspect and an official delegation.
The US immigration staff does not leave any stone unturned in proving their loyalty to the state and have physically searched elected parliamentarians of Pakistan.
Despite the fact hundreds of our military and paramilitary jawans and civilians have laid down their lives in fighting the US war against terror, US immigration authorities always give a cold shoulder to Pakistani nationals, whenever Pakistanis land on US soil. This means that US officials cannot differentiate between friend and foe.
A high-powered US official delegation is expected to arrive in Pakistan in March. Should Pakistan immigration officials also physically search the members of the Bush delegation in the same way and manner as the US immigration authorities?
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
TURBAT is the headquarters of Kech district and the second largest city of Balochistan after Quetta. Traffic jams in Turbat city are common nowadays. Roads had been planned about 25 years ago according to the traffic flow of that time. Although repairs of the roads were carried out, scant attention was given to the need to widen them.
Over the years traffic has increased many times while roads have not been built. Besides, people coming for shopping park their vehicles and motorcycles on the roads which causes traffic jams. The authorities concerned should take notice of the problem.
ALLAHDAD SHAD
Turbat
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