KARACHI’S citizens will no doubt welcome the 100-day cleanliness campaign launched on Thursday by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation. The drive — initiated by Mayor Waseem Akhtar — intends to focus on the key areas of sanitation and road repairs. Anyone who lives in Karachi will testify that the metropolis is suffering from an advanced stage of urban decay. Despite being Pakistan’s largest city and commerce hub, Karachi currently resembles a large garbage dump, with crumbling infrastructure and potholed roads. In fact, in the World Bank’s Karachi City Diagnostic Report, the bank says that the metropolis confronts “severe environmental challenges” which include “a high incidence of air, land and water, including marine, pollution”. Much of this, as the report says, is caused by inadequate waste management. The report observes that less than 60pc of Karachi’s people have access to sewerage facilities, while the same percentage of solid waste is not collected and transferred to dump sites. In fact, much of the waste is either left rotting in neighbourhoods, or is burnt, which creates a choking miasma that envelops localities. Keeping these grim details in mind, the mayor’s effort is much needed, if much delayed, though it is also a fact that Karachi only received an elected city administration earlier this year after an eight-year gap.

The mayor says he is doing what he can with limited resources. What the city needs is a permanent waste-management system. However, the fact is that the Sindh government controls two key areas that should be under municipal control: waste management and sewerage facilities. The city’s problems are complex and deep-rooted, and nothing short of a sustainable master plan can address its woes. But as an initial step, all civic functions, along with financial control, must be under the mayor’s jurisdiction. Waseem Akhtar says the Sindh chief minister has assured him of support; the best way the provincial government can show its support is by transferring all municipal functions to the elected local bodies across Sindh.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2016