Last month’s torrential rains in Karachi have sparked off a fierce debate on the faulty sewerage system in the city and on the capability of those who have been given the task to manage it. To be honest, over the years, the issue has never been thoroughly addressed which is why it is still something that becomes the bane of citizens’ lives in the monsoon season.

On Sept 29, 1970 the Divisional Coordination Committee of Karachi met and considered at length the problem of improving the joint sewerage and drainage scheme. Various housing societies and local bodies which had failed to pay their share of charges –– called the treatment service charges (part II) — were asked to do so immediately to the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) in order to give ‘fillip’ to the schemes in hand and to ensure proper progress of development works. In view of the dues outstanding against the housing societies, the meeting decided that notices be served on the defaulters to pay their share within a specific period, otherwise water supply to their areas would be disconnected.

One is reminded, as was mentioned last week in this column, of a similar demand made by the KMC that land and building owners in the city should clear their municipal dues by Sept 30. On Oct 1, On the contrary, the management of PECHS, refusing to pay any taxes, asked the KMC for PECHS’s share of octroi and wheel tax. The society, in a communication to the corporation, said that it had built 50 miles of roads, laid its own water supply pipelines and was maintaining them. Therefore, it believed, the KMC had no claim over the area for any taxes except for the fire brigade tax.

And on Oct 2, a meeting of the residents of F B Area held under the auspices of the National Awami Party (Wali group) chalked out a three-point line of action to resolve the water crisis in their locality. The Karachi Development Authority (KDA) had been asked to install a meter at the water pumping station on Superhighway to measure the quantity of water that was flowing to North Karachi. It urged the authority to build an independent pipeline for supplying water to the industrial area in Blocks 21 and 22 which was getting water at the cost of residential area.

Amidst this hullabaloo, Karachi’s art scene kept moving forward. On Oct 2, an exhibition of artworks by Yugoslavian artist Bogdan Javanovic opened at the Arts Council. A critic described his work as “scenes and faces taken simply and feelingly from life.” Javanovic was known as a traveling painter — he painted while traveling through foreign lands and did that with his left hand which was the only functioning hand he had.

It is believed that the artist community belongs to the sensitive segment of society. But in those days Karachi was a sensitive city in general — it cared not just for human beings but also for animals. On Oct 1, to celebrate World Animals Day, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals announced that free fodder and feed would be provided to animals in the city on Oct 4. Ah, these days, the cruelty knows no bounds.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2020