MUCH has been said about the recent rains that caused unparalleled damage in Karachi. Precious lives were lost, business and personal assets destroyed, livelihoods severed, properties and constructed structures damaged, and miseries inflicted due to various kinds of infrastructure collapse.

All this happened at a time when key political stakeholders were wrangling over what course the disadvantaged metropolis should take. The federal government was seeking a greater role for itself and federal institutions, the Sindh government wished to continue with business as usual, and Karachi’s mayor was bowing out after a luckless tenure. Many from civil society and the business community wanted radical change in the city’s institutional arrangements. Ordinary citizens from various neighbourhoods, affluent and underprivileged, collectively aspired for major change.

Added to these demands are now calls for the immediate repairs of roads and streets; a dependable drainage system; overhaul of power, telecom and digital infrastructure; and compensation for losses of life and property. It is obvious that, with the current institutional arrangements, these goals may be difficult if not impossible to achieve. But the metropolis can be completely transformed and regain its lost glory, without radically altering the political status quo, if a few rational steps are taken.

Karachi needs to be managed with consensus.

Karachi’s realities need to be accepted prior to any rehabilitation and reform process worth its name. The metropolis accounts for one-third of Sindh’s population. Going by the 2017 provisional census results, its present population is over 20 million, though sprawling developments in the outskirts suggest that this figure could be greater. Karachi has a diverse and upwardly mobile population, and contributes a sizable proportion of the federal and provincial revenue.

Karachi’s management is divided between the federal, provincial and local governments. Yet the issues plaguing management of the city’s affairs remain highly visible. Divided jurisdictions between land-management agencies, excessive experimentation in the local governance structure, declining capacities of local institutions in service delivery and management, ad hoc and unplanned infrastructure and housing developments, and the political attitude of competing tiers taking credit for development works have all contributed to the present impasse.

Karachi’s residents demand appropriate thresholds of services and urban management. It is no surprise that sharp criticisms of the sinking performance of the present federal, provincial and local regimes are growing. Certain issues are starkly apparent — poor quality of human resources, paucity of operational budgets, weak monitoring mechanisms, absence of effective audit and accounts procedures, financial dependence on the federal and provincial governments, lack of control over the police, tutelage exercised by federal and provincial institutions, and the inability to generate finance for local works. Karachi struggles with a shortage of funds to strengthen vital services such as sanitation, water supply, informal settlement upgradation and firefighting.

The city needs consensus more urgently than ever before. A Karachi steering committee can be notified representing all land management bodies, infrastructure agencies, elected/appointed heads of municipal bodies, and representatives of major stakeholders and civil society, chaired by the chief minister and vice-chaired by the city mayor/administrator.

This committee must be the apex decision-making body on urban development, management, infrastructure, services, jurisdictional and functional issues, budgets and finances, and human resources in various agencies. The committee can draft its own terms of reference once it is set up through a mutually agreed consultative process. An analysis of the roles, responsibilities, capacities and available resources must be conducted of all these institutions, and a rolling programme of periodic upgradation prepared for each of them.

Besides this, a Karachi Division planning agency must be created through a legal and administrative arrangement devised by the federal and provincial governments. The agency should be sufficiently empowered to prescribe development plans, enforcement mechanisms and growth patterns through a consultative process. The Karachi Develop­ment Plans of 1974-1985 and 1986-2000 strongly recommended such an institutional arrangement.

Intra-institutional reforms must be initiated in KMC; cantonment boards; DMCs; SITE; port authorities; KWSB; Karachi, Malir and Lyari development authorities; Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority; and SBCA and DHA. These bodies must be advised to undertake a need analysis for capacity building and upgradation against their responsibilities, as well as to prepare and submit comprehensive annual reports to the steering committee.

The writer is chairman, Department of Architecture & Planning, NED University, Karachi.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2020