KARACHI, Jan 17: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal said on Wednesday that never in the past celebrations like that of Hamara Karachi were organised to give a sense of ownership to the people of Karachi.
“It is for the first time in the history of Karachi that the present city district government organised the Hamara Karachi programme to celebrate the platinum jubilee of the city's historic KMC building, constructed 75 years back”.
He was speaking at a civic reception hosted in connection with Hamara Karachi celebrations at the Kothari Parade, Clifton, another historic structure facing the magnificently lush green Bagh Ibn-i-Qasim constructed on 130 acres along the seashore. “Perhaps, the previous rulers had no face to go before the people to give them a sense of ownership of Karachi,” Mustafa Kamal observed and added: “We are developing Karachi, the revenue engine of the country and 7th biggest city of the world, in the global context to attract local and foreign investors to market this city for them.
“It is our main vision as well as a challenging task,” he said, adding that during the last 13-14 months the way we worked, made impossible possible and created an environment in which everyone was made to feel that something was happening in Karachi.
He said the CDGK was developing city's infrastructure which otherwise remained untouched for the last 50 years as well as obsolete water and sewerage systems and bringing improvement in the jammed traffic system, besides focussing on information technology with IT Tower being a glaring example of the same having a 30,000-seat call centre.
“It was the way to move forward,” he pointed out and said actions spoke louder than words.
These celebrations, he pointed out, had brought people of Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh nearer to one another.
He pointed to Bagh Ibn-i-Qasim and said today this area which was under illegal occupation of drug and other mafias and a no-go area for the last 20 years, is an emblem of Karachi.
Mustafa Kamal said that during the previous governments, 22 illegal allotments were made from this land as political favour and all these areas were retrieved and made open for the public.
He said the spirited soul of the Sindh governor was behind all this development which started with sandblasting of the Kothari Parade’s canopy and then “we started moving ahead”.
“We have given this park to real owners of Karachi instead of allotting its land to the rich,” the nazim said.
Earlier, Naib Nazim Karachi Nasrin Jalil in her welcome address paid tributes to the Haq Parast leadership for reviving the past glories of this city.
On the occasion, the nazim along with the naib nazim presented traditional gifts to guests from India, including Mayor of Kolkata Bhatacharya Bikash Ranjan, his wife Ibha Bhatacharya, former Indian secretary Sivarama Krishnan, Director of the Institute of Sciences Kolkata Dr George Methew, Deepish Salgia and Hingorani, representatives of the KMC's building contractor besides leader of the visiting Turkish Troupe Darveshes.
Gifts were also presented to the heirs of the past mayors of Karachi including Jamshed Nasurwanji, Tikam Das Wadhumal, Kazi Khuda Bux, Alhaj Malik Bagh Ali, S.M. Taufiq, Abdul Sattar Afghani and Dr Farooq Sattar.
Later, the guests were shown the panoramic view of Bagh Ibn-i-Qasim. — APP
