Among the city’s beaches, Clifton is the closest to city centre and the most easily accessible to ordinary public. It has historically been a place where the city’s population goes to relax and pass a few moments in peace in the open. Hence any plans to convert it, or portions of it, into a commercialized wasteland open to the affluent only invites severe public reaction.
While a student in the ‘60s, I remember going to the beach to pass some time in its calm and reasonably natural surroundings. Just a stroll at the beach or a cup of tea with some good friends in one of those wooden cabins that lined the seashore or the relatively more expensive Sea Breeze Restaurant at the end of the Kothari Parade — the only ‘pucca’ building there — was highly refreshing. The unpolluted air and unspoiled beach was delightful.
Then came the beach development project by the now defunct Karachi Development Authority, under which a sea wall and a marine drive was to be built at the beach and gardens along the Kothari parade.
But this was well within tolerable limits, though there was a technical controversy at the time between the KDA and the KPT over whether a marine drive and a sea wall was really worth making in view of the receding sea at the Clifton beach. One of the matters to be settled was the boundary between the residential district and the oil installation area at Keamari. A controversy also raged about whether Clifton seafront was a healthy area for residential purposes in view of the presence of sulfate spray and fine mica sand in the atmosphere at the beach.
Eventually, the KDA went ahead with the its beach development scheme and the residential KDA Scheme number five. Then another player entered the picture — the all-powerful Defence Officers Housing Society. How it acquired land all along the beach from Clifton to almost Korangi is another story, but it did initiate intensive housing development in the area. In 1973, they floated an apartment project right on the seafront. It was a turnkey project for which consortiums of architects and contractors vied with one another. The selected one was awarded design and construction of the project.
The Sea View Apartments alongside the marine drive were born a couple of years later. They faced the onslaught of the highly corrosive sulfate laden air. If one cares to look closely, the frontage of many of these apartments have been lined later by the owners with stone facing in an attempt to protect them from the elements. But this provides small protection. The inmates would testify to the rapid rate of corrosion of household appliances like airconditioners, refrigerators etc., and steel grills wherever used. In many, cases the concrete fell off due to rusting of reinforcing steel bars and the owners have had to incur heavy maintenance costs in the comparatively short period that these buildings have been in existence.
In fact, once the ball of ‘development’ started rolling, the pillage of Clifton beach has continued unabated. The DHA, for its part, has never looked back. Compelled by its basic character — a representative of a powerful interest group rather than a public department looking after the public’s good — its priorities have not always been in harmony with real public interest.
As example of its priorities: while the DHA makes grandiose plans for ‘development’ at Clifton beach, in parts of the DHA water is supplied to residents by tankers. The state of sewerage and power in some areas is no better. Yet, the prices of land skyrocket, thanks partly to shortage of new public sector housing schemes in Karachi and partly to speculators — another interest group that has become masters in plunder at the expense of the people in this commercial city.
Meanwhile, the body that started as a housing society for defence officers has made phenomenal progress and assumed the status of an ‘Authority’. However, in keeping with its priorities, it has floated the highly expensive luxury project of Creek Vista Apartments, in Phase VIII of the society — sorry, Authority.
The Karachi Port Trust, too, has recently come up with support for some infrastructure projects, such as the underpasses in Clifton and the flyover at Korangi Road. Leaving the desirability of having an underpasses to the experts, let us turn to another of its projects — the 1,500ft Port Tower on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis at a stupendous cost. How high this ‘Port Tower’ would be can be gauged from the fact that the Habib Bank Plaza is only about 230ft above road level and the Manora Light House is slightly over 100ft above the top of the ground it stands on.
The Port Tower would also be surrounded by shopping malls, eating houses and other ‘entertainment’ facilities. A ‘food street’ has also been planned at the old Native Jetty Bridge. (Incidentally, there is a notice posted there to the effect that anyone throwing garbage into the sea would be prosecuted.)
The DHA has its own ‘vision’ for Clifton, which is not likely to be any different from facilities similar to those described. The people are in a fix. While the city suffers acute shortages of water and power, and the prices of property skyrocket at an unprecedented rate, thanks to the pernicious grip of speculators on the city. They are out to make a quick buck, and have neither the opportunity nor the desire to make productive investment — in the economic sense.
Public sector projects of mass public interest are moving at a snail’s pace. Resurrection of the KCR is inordinately late. The last action on this front — increase in the frequency of local trains on the main line from three per day each way to five is merely an eyewash. By no stretch of the imagination can it be considered ‘revival of the KCR’.
The real KCR line continues to be under encroachment, with tons of earth covering the railway line at one place in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, as the sides of the cutting it passes through at that point have caved in. Public transport is in shambles. Rickety, over-speeding, overloaded ‘minibuses’ and ‘Special Coaches’ continue to be the backbone of public transport system in Karachi.
There is a lot of development work going on. The city government under its dynamic Nazim is, undoubtedly, attending to some good and important works — such as development of public parks and the reconstruction of major roads and sewerage lines. However, some most powerful and ‘financially sound’ bodies seem to be more interested in floating highly expensive, essentially useless facilities (for a few higher-income groups) in the name of recreation.
For the ‘VIPs’, the government can go to any length, including closing public roads for hours or days at a stretch. Recently, an idea has been mooted: construction of another road linking Baloch colony with the airport merely to ‘facilitate the movement of the VIPs’.
We are told that public interest guides public policy in all modern states, whether capitalist or socialist. It has behind it the philosophy of utilitarianism — policies adopted are those that provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. Perhaps our elite ‘Authorities’ have redefined ‘public interest’ and proceeded accordingly.
Among the city’s beaches, Clifton is the closest to city centre and the most easily accessible to ordinary public. It has historically been a place where the city’s population goes to relax and pass a few moments in peace in the open. Hence any plans to convert it, or portions of it, into a commercialized wasteland open to the affluent only invites severe public reaction.
