KARACHI: Saddar Town demands more funds as compensation: Services to non-residents
By Hasan Mansoor
KARACHI, Nov 17: The Saddar Town has suggested to the provincial and the city governments and town municipal administrations (TMAs) to pay for the burden of other agencies and governments it braves and the services it provides to those who do not reside within its jurisdiction at the cost of its own residents.
The Saddar Town officials said that at a recent meeting, the Saddar TMA suggested to the city government to evolve a formula to compensate the city’s busiest town for the services it provides to those who were not its residents but pass most of their day at their workplaces located in their town.
The Saddar Town also demanded of the provincial government to pay for the services it provided to its individuals and establishments, most of which were located within its jurisdiction.
Sources privy to a meeting at the Governor’s House, held a few weeks back, said that the Saddar town nazim also discussed the proposals with Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad on the grounds that the services his town provided to the VVIPs, government establishment and burden of ‘millions of outsiders’ it took daily, had left the town with negligible funds to spent on its uplift projects.
“Our town has a population of one million people but it becomes about 2.5 to 3 million during the daytime because of the people coming from the rest of the city for work, which clearly shows that we share ample burden of other towns of Karachi,” Saddar Town Nazim Mohammad Dilawar told Dawn.
Mr Dilawar said that during his meetings with the Sindh governor and the city nazim, he had demanded for moneys to compensate his town for the funds it used in providing services to the non-residents.
According to him, Saddar Town gets water share for its population of one million but due to the daily influx of around two million people, the actual residents suffer scarcity of drinking water. Besides, the increasing burden had hit the decades-old sewerage system in Saddar.
“We have suggested that every town should pay us five to ten per cent of their share from the development expenditure so that we could use them for maintenance work and launching of new development projects,” Mr Dilawar said. He said that a comparison of budgetary allocations for uplift works by Saddar Town and Gulshan Town could make the picture clear.
“Gulshan Town is smaller with far less burden to what our infrastructure puts up with but it has allocated Rs800 million for uplift projects and we have just Rs200 million,” he said.
The Saddar Town officials said that the TMA had also demanded compensation from the Sindh government for the services it provided to VVIPs and establishments in itsjurisdiction.
“At least 20 per cent of our staffs from parks, water and other departments are at the provincial government’s disposal to provide them such services and we are there to pay for it,” said an official.
