THE monsoon season in the subcontinent should be a time of great joy, with wet weather bringing respite from the stifling summer heat. But in Karachi, rainfall brings a feeling of dread, with citizens fearing long durations without power, flooded streets and dangling electric wires ready to electrocute any unfortunate soul that should come in contact with them. Sure enough, on Friday, after a brief spell of rain this script was followed to a tee in this unfortunate metropolis, with at least two people electrocuted, massive city-wide traffic snarl-ups and wide thoroughfares turning into canals. If a few millimetres of rain were enough to bring the country’s economic capital to its knees, one shudders to think what the situation would be in case of sustained heavy rainfall.

The reasons for this sad state of affairs are multiple. Primarily, decades of neglect by federal, provincial and local governments have left a legacy of decaying infrastructure and failed institutions in this city. In Karachi, solid waste disposal, the drainage and water supply system as well as other basic issues of urban management have fallen victim to a vicious turf war between the PPP-led Sindh government and the MQM-steered city administration. The result is that no one is willing to take responsibility for failures; the easy way out is to blame political opponents. While multimillion-dollar projects have been announced to fix Karachi’s drainage system — which has collapsed, as was evident on Friday — the fact is that only an effective local government system, led by professionals concerned with public welfare rather than political apparatchiks, can fix the city’s multiple urban problems. The Sindh government has clearly failed while trying to act as a glorified municipality for the megacity; the mayor has also failed to deliver the goods with whatever powers he has available to him. It is time Sindh’s political stakeholders worked out a proper, empowered local government system for the province’s urban areas, as the status quo is simply not working.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2020