KARACHI: The acceptance of a Sindh government request by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to reschedule local government elections in the province gave it an opportunity to settle some unfinished business, especially in Karachi where it has just notified a sixth district municipal corporation (DMC), it emerged on Thursday.

A notification issued by the provincial local government department a couple of days ago referred to a Nov 4 order for the creation of Korangi district and added that the provincial government with the approval of the competent authority was ‘pleased to notify a DMC for the newly created Korangi district’.

Officials in the LG department said they with their colleagues in the revenue department were working day in and day out to suitably carve out union committees from East and Malir districts to be included in the Korangi DMC. “The matter is not as easy as it appears from a distance,” said an official, adding that for making the sixth DMC, four other DMCs would have to get certain basic boundary changes as defined in the Nov 4 notification.

The government created new subdivisions and varied the limits of the previous subdivisions of the five districts, leaving just Karachi Central intact.

The subdivisions of the five districts redesigned are as follows:Karachi South with subdivisions and talukas of Saddar, Arambagh, Civil Lines, Garden, Lyari, Harbour and Mauripur. Korangi district consists of Model Colony, Shah Faisal, Korangi and Landhi sub-divisions.

Karachi East comprises Ferozabad, Jamshed Quarters, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Gulzar-i-Hijri (Scheme-33).

Subdivisions Bin Qasim, Ibrahim Hyderi, Shah Mureed, Gadap, Airport and Murad Memon form Malir district while Karachi West encompasses Orangi, Mominabad, SITE, Baldia and Manghopir.

Karachi Central remains unchanged with Liaquatabad, Gulberg, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad and New Karachi subdivisions.

In Karachi South now Garden also contains the defunct Eidgah subdivision with Garden; Lyari replaces the City subdivision and Saddar contains the area that falls within the remit of the Saddar police station, DHA Phase 1 and 2 and defunct Preedy subdivision.

District South is stuffed with Harbour and Mauripur subdivisions of Karachi West. It concedes the area falling between DHA Phase 1 and Baloch Colony Road up to KPT Bridge, that is Baloch Colony, Akhtar Colony, Manzoor Colony etc to Karachi East. Besides, Deh Gujro-I, southern part of the Lyari river or part of Scheme-33 has been included in District East.

In the light of the above revenue boundary changes, Karachi East will almost lose half of its strength. It will concede 42 UCs out of a total of 66 from Model Colony, Shah Faisal, Korangi and Landhi sub-divisions to Malir and include 11 UCs from Karachi South’s part of Saddar subdivision. Karachi East, according to officials, may be a smaller DMC with about 35 UCs.

Similarly, the Malir DMC may lose five of its 20 UCs in the new boundaries and will just be 15-member strong. With Malir’s additional five UCs, Korangi’s new DMC will be the city’s second largest with 47 UCs after Karachi Central’s 61.

The Karachi South DMC will concede 11 UCs to East and take some seven from Karachi West’s Harbour and Mauripur subdivisions and could shrink to 41-member strong from its existing 45 UCs.

Similarly, Karachi West will have a 44-member DMC from its present 51 UCs.

The future city council will consist of 243 general members in the shape of elected chairmen of all the union committees. With 22pc women and 5pc each for workers/peasants and minorities seats its total strength may reach 321.

Confusion on rural areas

With strong support prevailing in the Pakistan Peoples Party-led provincial government about abolishing the Karachi District Council (KDC), which controls the city’s rural areas, and include those localities into the city’s urban population, the rulers are still hesitant to issue a notification for reasons more political than legal.

“Karachi rural areas could be merged into the DMCs and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, but the matter has just been discussed at certain level so far. A formal notification needs time and all-encompassing consideration,” said Dr Sikander Mandhro, provincial law minister.

The KDC has just been revived after a 12-year hiatus. It had been abolished in 2001 when Gen Pervez Musharraf had introduced his own local government system and had made it part of a huge Karachi district comprising 18 towns.

Sources said the government is hesitant to do away with the KDC in one go, because the PPP has its strongholds in the city’s rural parts, where people and local cadres have diverse opinion on the KDC’s fate.

The party leadership wants to ‘give a chance’ to the city’s rural fringes to be represented in its metropolitan corporation. Besides, the conversion would raise the value of their under-priced lands and development could bump up their lifestyle.

However, there are detractors in the PPP and other political parties who staunchly oppose the idea claiming the future development will come at the cost of the native population. However, supporters of the government’s plans say the detractors’ criticism was based on a conspiracy to maintain their hold on their poor subjects.

If the plans are approved, the KDC’s four union councils in Karachi West will dissolve and a single union committee will be added up to the district. Similarly, some five union committees in place of 21 union councils would be carved out to reinforce a smaller DMC of Malir district.