ON June 28, 1969 the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) council unanimously passed its hitherto all-time high budget estimates for 1969-70 with a record-breaking expenditure allocation for development. The 1969-70 fiscal plan had receipts amounting to Rs15.71 crore in all, and the expenditures of Rs15.84 crore. The total revenue receipts came to an all-time high of Rs12.87 crore with the lion’s share coming from octroi estimates at about Rs6.25 crore. The budget was passed after a lengthy debate lasting three days. The deliberations at the concluding session on June 28 that carried on for nearly six hours took unusual twists and turns –– first, when all the 50-odd cut motions were withdrawn on the assurance of the KMC chairman, Abrar Hasan Khan, that all would be looked into; and secondly, when the opposition members brought the proceedings to a close by staging a walkout over the proposal to set up a committee to look into the proposal of rationalising taxes.

Addressing the city fathers after the new budget was passed, the chairman said that all was being done by the administration in the interest of the citizens along the ‘guidelines provided by the member of the council’. He claimed he had made a ‘mental and written note of all the problems’ discussed during the three days and promised to look into them.

An interesting thing happened on the second day of the budget session, (June 27) with the Karachi summer as hot as ever and no provisions for new parks in the 1969-70 budget in sight due to the all-round water scarcity, some council members suggested the introduction of tube wells in certain areas. They said tube wells should be considered seriously as an experiment for the localities hit hard by water scarcity at least to cope with the problem of providing water to the few patches of greenery in the city.

On June 28, the corporation faced opposition not for its new fiscal scheme but for something entirely different. Strychnine, the deadliest of poisons, used by the KMC to destroy stray dogs, had also killed some pets, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) complained in a press release. It therefore advised the pet owners to take first aid measures whenever they suspected the pets to have taken the poison.

On the subject of medical treatment, on June 29, the media delivered an encouraging piece of information according to which, for the first time in Pakistan a patient was fitted with an immediate post-operative prosthesis on the operation table. The appliance was developed by the experts at the Orthopedic Workshop of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre along the lines suggested by various international research scholars.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2019