| September 10, 2007 | Monday | Sha'aban 27, 1428 |
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PTCL : what is the difference?
Pakistan, Paristan
Faletti’s Hotel’s trees
Experts at a loss
Quaidabd flyover
The former PMs
Managing traffic in Ramazan
Expenses on deal talks
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
DISCUSSIONS following the letter on ‘Energy crisis’ (Sept 3) focus on the very important subject of energy conservation, specially in buildings since this sector has actually created the energy crisis now being faced all over the country. Most professionals related to energy system in buildings agree that massive adoption of inefficient electrical and mechanical system, including airconditioning installations, has caused this chaos and more and more unplanned inefficient buildings will accentuate this crisis further.
Starting from ‘normal’ homes with sanctioned electric loads of about three to four kW, now using two to three airconditioners, in addition to other home appliances (peaks of eight to 10 kW loads) and offices with enormous increase in electrical loads due to haphazard addition of airconditioners will continue to create serious problems unless minimum awareness of energy conservation is created by:
1. Building codes: Everywhere in the world building codes define all safety and energy efficiency requirements. In our country, building codes have been ignored (at least since 1986) and even now only seismic structure requirements have been covered but energy conservation codes ignored.
How can we work towards green buildings (with energy and water conservation) if even basic energy conservation codes are not understood. Only green buildings will be sustainable and all our wasteful buildings will be an economic burden and we would be hard pressed to supply energy to these ‘white elephants’.
It is true good references are available for green buildings and American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Airconditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is really committed, both directly and through Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), to provide help and guidance but where is our commitment?
We need to move fast as time is not on our side. It might be just too late if we continue with our wasteful ways. The example of a ‘red building’ is discussed mostly in relation to the owners’ decision to install a very inefficient cogeneration system (which actually wastes precious Sui gas).
One is surprised to note that only 50 per cent of engine waste heat recovery has been attempted (and that too very inefficiently) and for the other 50 per cent waste heat, this building actually spends more electric load and consumes more water to get rid of the heat (and add more pollution to Karachi).
This is irresponsible and because it is a government building, better sense should have prevailed.
2. Efficient systems: Our ‘modern’ buildings are based on the old concept of ‘build anything’ and force electrical and mechanical systems to meet the energy requirements. Whereas the world is moving towards zero-energy concept (no utility connections for electric or natural gas or oil), we are building systems which are not sustainable in the existing energy scenario. The referred Green Guide by ASHRAE lists ways and methods to meet green building requirements by first designing the building with energy conservation features and then installing system which are both energy-efficient and cost-effective.
We are happy with the present trend of wasting our precious natural gas. One sees such misuse all around us. It is normal to install gas engine generators, both in commercial and institutional buildings and factories, and not bother about efficiency. Such installations are only 1/3rd efficient and 2/3rds of national wealth are being wasted and this is only adding to further pollution.
We have subsidized both electric and gas tariffs and that is why no attempt is made to conserve. Climate change due to environmental pollution is now not disputed. We are messing up our glaciers (real source of water) as well as weather pattern and very soon we will find out the consequences by severe reduction in water availability. And all this just because of our wasteful ways.
Energy efficiency and conservation are urgently needed and green buildings provide these opportunities now. If the present megaprojects are not designed to green requirements, these will not be sustainable at all. All efforts should be ensued to urgently follow recommendations of professional organisations like ASHRAE to ensure an acceptable environment for our children.
AINUL ABEDIN
Karachi
DO the PTCL’s marketing wizards believe that the company can regain its lost customers and retain the existing ones by heavily advertising its new logo and slogan and running expensive commercials in the electronic media?
I think that whoever is in charge of the company’s marketing function needs to learn the most fundamental principle of marketing that having satisfied customers is the most important and valuable asset for any business. After all, why a company’s goodwill fetches a high price in the market?
The most important fact is that the PTCL has been gradually losing its customers and, therefore, its business. This is evident from its performance, especially after the privatisation.
According to a TV channel, Mr Mashkoor Hussain, a senior executive vice president of the PTCL, recently claimed that the telecommunication network was working properly. I suggest that he review his report (Aug 18) according to which 13,000 telephones are out of order in Karachi alone.
The telephone lines going out of order temporarily for genuine reasons is understandable. What is not understandable is the lack of interest of telephone exchanges in fixing the faults speedily.
Are they accountable to anyone? My own telephone No. 401-4179 has been dead since June 21 (two days before the stormy rains lashed Karachi on June 23). Despite repeated complaints in writing, as well as those lodged at 18, no one from the Gulistan-i-Jauhar exchange has bothered to fix the line.
What is more ironic is that I have been billed for a dead telephone line. Obviously I will not pay the bill which, in effect, is an attempt to extort money from a customer. Dead and faulty telephone lines in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar telephone exchange area are not a new phenomenon. It has been happening for years. Therefore, shifting blame on to rains and frequent power breakdowns is a lame excuse which no customer will buy.
May I recommend to the PTCL that instead of creating new logos and slogans (‘feel the difference’), it should conduct a survey of its customers. Knowing the level of the customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction will be of tremendous help to the privatised company in its strategic planning.
But an urgent step it can take is to motivate its employees to do their job. The motivation may be a recognition of the job well done, or a KITA (those who have studied management know what it means).
SHAMEEM AHMAD
Karachi
THIS is with reference to A. Qavi Shakoor’s interesting piece of writing, ‘Pakistan, Paristan’ (Aug 27) wherein he has dilated on the upshot of 60 years’ journey of the country comparing with other regional states having similar suffix of ‘istan’. He has, however, fallen into serious error treating the Kazakhs (inhabiting Kazakhstan) and Cossacks as the same people.
Although the Kazakhs and Cossacks in Turkish are having similar meaning, i.e. independent or wanderer/vagabond, however, the Kazakhs are Turkic-speaking Muslims of Sunni stock that inhabited Kazakhstan for centuries but who now account for only about 1/5th of the population owing to having immigration of Russians in 19th and 20th centuries. The Russians made about 2/5th and ethnic German and Ukrainian 1/10th. Originally the Kazakhs are also of Uzbek descent who moved in what is now called Kazakhstan in 15th and 16th centuries.
The name Cossacks is given to a group of people in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), chiefly of Russian and Ukrainian stock, who lived principally on the steppes that begin north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains and extend eastward to the Altay Mountains in Siberia. Those inhabiting the regions of the Don and Kuban’ rivers are known respectively as the Don and Kuban’ Cossacks. It was they who were employed in Russian Imperial forces and their sovereignty was upheld as a quid pro quo.
Zahiruddin Muhammad Babar (1483-1530), founder of the Mughal dynasty of India and its first emperor (1526-1530) came from Ferghana which at that time was a small independent kingdom.
Later on almost the entire present-day Central Asian countries came under three Khanates. Ferghana was held under the Khanate of Kokand, the other two being Bokhara and Khiva. By 1870 the Russian monolith encroached upon these lands and after 1917 revolution made them part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In 1924 the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was formed with Tashkent as its capital city.
ALTAMASH M. KURESHI
Karachi
THREE years have passed since the previous Punjab ombudsman, Justice (r) Sajjad Sipra, ruled that the 149 trees in the garden of the historical Faletti’s Hotel of Lahore must be protected by law.
In this ruling, the ombudsman has stated that the 149 trees must be counted as to number and species in the presence of the owner of the hotel and two government representatives of the Environment Protection Agency, Punjab.
In spite of numerous reminders from our Society, the Environment Protection Agency of Punjab has yet to comply with the orders of the ombudsman’s ruling that the trees must be counted in the presence of new owner of this hotel.
The Faletti’s Hotel is the last remaining historical hotel in Pakistan. Built in the early 20th century, it forms a part of the great tradition which has produced some of the most famous hotels in the world, such as Hotel Rafles at Singapore,
the beautiful Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, the Strand in Rangoon, Myanmar, and the Peninsula, Hong Kong, all of these great hotels have been lovingly restored and generate enormous revenues from those tourists seeking to make contact with the historical past of these various countries.
Faletti’s Hotel, even in its shabby rundown state, continued to generate enormous revenues for the public sector. Let us hope that it will be restored to its former glory and preserved for future generations.
The garden of the Faletti’s Hotel is a rare wildlife sanctuary located in one of the most polluted areas of Lahore, and this along with the lovely hotel must be preserved for all time to come.
KATHARINE ABBASI
Chairperson, Society
Friends of Trees
Karachi
IT has been proved that no contingency plan whatsoever exists in this city of more than 15 million people to meet such grim crises as a highrise building on fire or sudden collapse of a gargantuan masonry structure like an overhead bridge.
How challenging is the fact that almost 10 per cent population of the country is concentrated in a city which has become unmanageable even in such routine matters as ‘gridlock’ on roads. God forbid if ever a calamity in terms of an earthquake involving extensive area happens to strike this city, what will the government of the city district, as well as of the province, do? As usual, they would be found looking up to Islamabad, which unfortunately were themselves found rudderless during the collapse of a multistoreyed apartment house, followed by high intensity earthquake in Muzzaffarabad.
Wasn’t it time for the authorities in Karachi to get together and devise a unified strategy to be armed with an effective ‘crisis management plan’ and meet such out-of-the-ordinary emergencies, through pre- and post-emptive measures? So far what came out of the ‘running commentaries’ telecast by the electronic media was extreme haplessness and utter confusion of authorities, confounded by the thrill seeking spectators who proved to be a major impediment for those who try to help.
I am not an engineer, but with apologies to experts I submit that every driver is aware of the powerful ‘centrifugal force’ proportionate to diameter of a circle and the weight and speed of the vehicle is generated while it goes through a turn on the road. To keep the vehicles from being thrown outwards, an inward tilt is given to the otherwise horizontal surface of the road on a flat land. If driving fast, the driver has to apply extra attention and skill to keep the car on the track. Otherwise the vehicle goes straight off the road.
I think the persistent radial drag on the portion of curve on the bridge, created by day and night traffic, including extra heavy vehicles, pulled the structure outwards causing a girder to slip off the pillar and forcing the platform to sag. Three heavy vehicles that were there at that time, got ‘centrifuged’ off and fell away from the structure of curve.
Other bridges, like the one along the National Stadium, with a ‘curve’ in their road need to be technically examined to look whether this hypothesis is acceptable as cause of the disaster.
I also venture to propose a few steps that should automatically come into effect whenever a catastrophe strikes:
1. Those vested with authority must shed the bureaucratic attitude to provide help as a human being to another in distress. It is a joint responsibility of public and private sectors.
2. Enforce curfew within a reasonable perimeter to keep the onlookers as far away as possible from the scene of tragedy. Media reporters ordinarily do not create hindrance if properly oriented to keep within limits of the specific type of their commitment.
3. Continuous announcements on every TV and every FM radio channel, etc, should be made along with loudspeaker-mounted police vans asking people to leave one lane free for unhindered movement of ambulances, fire tenders, heavy vehicles such as cranes or demolition/construction equipment, and staff of supervising and monitoring agencies, etc.
4. Crisis management plan should be drawn and put into effect after discussions under unanimously agreed single command operation according to the type of hazard, viz. flood, tsunami, fire, earthquake, landslide or collapse of massive building, overhead bridge or underpass, etc. Every type of emergency would call for different series of measures depending upon the nature and extent of the calamity. Even the seemingly minor ones must also be taken with same seriousness as the major ones.
5. Some sort of ‘drills’ should occasionally be held by creating sham emergency, at different localities, to monitor the application of the emergency plan and evaluate its usefulness to improve upon the measures found deficient.
6. Orientation workshops, lectures, demonstrations, etc., be organised in schools, colleges, offices, factories, etc, to infuse a sense of responsibility in citizens.
DR M.S. JAFFERY
Karachi
IT took almost two years for the Quaidabad flyover to be completed and open for public. These two years, so difficult and painful, only those can imagine who have suffered.
As a matter of principle there was no alternative route provided during all this construction work. The side road, the only available passage for all Landhi, Korangi, and Steel Town and Bin Qasim goers, was in such a bad and dilapidated condition that it was a nightmare to travel on it.
But now the flyover is open for public and it is our misfortune that within a week of its opening it has developed big cracks on both of its tracks.
Finally, it is closed for public for repair work now. The quality of work, if it is seen from a distance, looks very ordinary and substandard.
In my opinion it is a very strong case for the apex court to take a suo motu action.
It should be decided once and for all that how long we are going to suffer by these corrupt and inefficient mafia which is immune to any process of accountability. Furthermore, I would like to add that only 30 per cent of people have benefited by this flyover while the remaining 70 per cent are still using the broken road beneath the flyover.
I would like to invite the chief justice of the Sindh High Court and the city nazim to pay a visit to this place at any busy hour and try to comprehend the misery of the people.
My special request to Mr Mustafa Kamal to order immediate repair or recarpeting of broken roads below the flyover.
DR MIRZA ALI AZHAR
Karachi
TWO former prime ministers are being welcomed by people as also by some newspapers. They say that these ex-PMs have learnt their lessons in exile. What kind of lessons? Have luxuries of the developed countries made them more sincere towards ours?
Even after a so-called life in exile, they have the temerity to declare themselves as patriotic leaders. What courage! Everyone knows these people are in the politics to make money. They can earn a lot of money by acting. In this way our nation will be free to choose new faces. But the question remains: is our nation capable of doing so?
RUBIA TABASSUM QADRI
Sialkot
WITH the debris of the recently-collapsed bridge yet to be removed and with the closure of several roads of the city, either due to construction or negligence of authorities concerned, Karachiites are bearing severe traffic jams every day. The distance which previously took half an hour to cover, now takes over an hour.
The problem will be at its worst in Ramazan when people will be in a rush to reach home to break fast.
Ramazan is about to start in some four or five days. With the current pathetic situation of city roads, getting traffic managed will be a big challenge for the government. The task can be achieved successfully if Rangers are deployed at busy arteries of the city to control traffic in place of traffic police.
The experiment had recently proved fruitful during rains when Ranger personnel were present at almost every busy road of the city controlling traffic. I request the highups to consider the suggestion and take measures to ensure smooth follow of traffic.
MUNEEB MOBIN
Karachi
ACCORDING to media reports, the president has been negotiating with a political party whose leader currently commutes between the UAE, the UK and the US. His last visit to the Arabian peninsula was also known to be in the same context. We are now being told that various government functionaries are involved in these negotiations on behalf of the president through teleconferences and the many visits abroad.
As these negotiations cannot be regarded as official and are seemingly at private level and also centring on the totally unofficial issues of the uniform and re-election, the expenditure thus being incurred should not be passed on to the national exchequer.
I am sure all those concerned are mindful of the moral aspect of this expenditure and hopefully would be footing the bill from their own pockets. The officials involved must also have sought private leave from the competent authorities for their parleys abroad. There is a thin line between public good and personal interests. It is simply criminal to cross it.
TAHIR BASHARAT CHEEMA
Lahore
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