KARACHI: Once a popular recreational spot, the Clifton aquarium has remained closed for 15 years. The story of its closure is a typical case of official apathy, it emerged on Sunday.

Substantial funds, sources said, had been allocated for the facility’s renovation every year but had never been released for what officials said ‘fund shortages’.

The official argument, they said, looked surprising considering that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) had established a freshwater aquarium in Korangi at a cost of Rs20 million a year back instead of reopening the old one.

The country with a 1,100-kilometre-long coastline has no marine aquarium. The only such facility, the Clifton aquarium (built in 1965), was closed down in 1998 on grounds that the building had become ‘dangerous’. Currently the zoos in the Garden and Korangi areas have freshwater aquariums.

This year, according to sources, Rs40 million had been allocated for the renovation of the Clifton aquarium that was hit hard by the construction of Bagh Ibn-i-Qasim back in 2005 when its upper floor, staff quarters and fish breeding section were all demolished by the parks and horticulture department given the task to build the park.

“This was done on the pretext that the upper floor was blocking the sea’s view. At that time, the aquarium was managed by the zoo administration,” said a senior KMC official.

He also claimed that the demolition had more to do with the rivalry between the officials then heading the parks department and the zoo and no official orders had ever been given in writing for the demolition.Another official claimed that no expert had ever declared the building ‘dangerous’ in writing. In fact, a private company had declared it safe. He also blamed the then aquarium administration for its destruction as, he said, the officials quietly watched the demolition of the infrastructure.

“It was after some plaster fell in the workshop located away from the main building that some officials started saying that the building was unsafe and the aquarium was closed to the pubic in 1998. Its upper floor having playing area for children, however, continued to be operated for another four years,” he said.

A recent visit to the facility showed that the money and time spent on demolishing the infrastructures seemed to have gone in waste as one still couldn’t see the sea from the park due to the surrounding plantation.

Work on renovation taken up a few years ago was still suspended. Fifty per cent of civil works, however, seemed to have been completed with strengthening of the old infrastructure; 33 fish tanks for marine and freshwater species.

Of the 45 staff members, some still work at the aquarium, which is now under the parks and horticulture department. No official was ready to comment on the past developments.

“We used to have a collection of more than 1,000 fishes of 70 to 80 species that included both marine and freshwater. The marine collection was local collected from areas such as Cape Monze, French Beach, Churna Island and Bola Ji,” said Mustaqeem Khan, who once worked at the aquarium but now headed the Koranig aquarium.

The facility, built with Japanese expertise, had a good filtration and aeration system, he added.

The aquarium’s deputy director, Ismail Shakir, said: “We all wanted that the aquarium opens but the KMC is cash-starved and the department is barely able to pay the employees’ salaries.”

Talking to Dawn, Mohammad Moazzam Khan working as a technical adviser on marine resources with the World Wide Fund for Nature — Pakistan lauded the way the aquarium was once operated and said there was a dire need that the country had at least one large aquarium where both freshwater and marine species were available.

“It was sad the Clifton aquarium was closed down. It had a good collection and was well maintained. I enjoyed going there as a boy and still remember seeing piranha (a freshwater fish known for its sharp teeth and voracious appetite for meat) there,” he said.

All kinds of fish, including sharks, could be kept in the aquarium, he said. “An aquarium should have a research facility for students. There is no issue of animal rights here, but I do not support keeping cetaceans in captivity,” he said.