NOT many would know that half a century back there used to be a union in Karachi of those who owned tongas — a tonga is a two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a horse. They were a popular mode of transportation at the time. On May 26, 1975 the Victoria and Tonga Owners Union filed a civil suit against the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and four persons. It prayed the KMC be restrained from interference, obstruction or creation of hindrance in the use of Victoria stands and water troughs at the Cantonment Railway Station used by tongas. The union said the shed and water troughs were constructed by the SPCA and later handed over to the KMC for maintenance. It alleged that the corporation had sold the stands and troughs to some individuals and the Victoria and tonga owners were not being allowed to use them.
Horses and donkeys belong to the equidae family. In those days, donkey cart races were quite the rage in Karachi. On May 29, Lyari’s Abdul Qadir won the title of owning the most expensive and tastefully decorated donkey cart in the city for the seventh year in a row. The competition was held by the Karachi Traffic Police. To celebrate his victory, Mr Qadir went around the city on May 29 and obliged pedestrians, shopkeepers and motorists to appreciate his effort. Everything in the vehicle was ornamented — wheel caps, mudguards, indicator lights, red velvet seats, a horn… and it even carried a TV. The ‘muscular’ donkey was also dressed in expensive linen. Altogether, Mr Qadir said, he had spent Rs35,000 on the cart.
If on the one hand, abundance was on display at a competition, on the other some areas of Karachi were facing paucity of an important commodity. On the morning of May 27, hundreds of residents of Bawany Challi, Manghopir Road, brandishing empty jugs, pitchers and buckets, staged a demonstration in front of the Sindh Assembly to register their protest against water shortage in their area. Some of their representatives went into the building where they met with provincial Minister for Labour Abdullah Baloch.
The next day, May 28, residents of North Nazimabad and North Karachi faced water shortage when two boosters of Orangi Reservoir remained idle for 40 minutes due to power breakdown. Inquiries showed that the water levels of the reservoir had dropped to an all-time low. The capacity of each set was 250,000 gallons of water per hour and the net loss of water supply due to power outage was well over 300,000 gallons.
Actually, the situation was more serious than the authorities concerned thought. On May 29, the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) said it was waiting for a report from its consultants on the subsoil investigations underneath the Orangi reservoir to ascertain whether it had begun to leak. Meanwhile, the repair of the 22,000-ft 72-inch diameter pipeline that ran through the township along the North Karachi Highway up to Jinnah College — the mainstay for a population of half a million — was in progress at a cost of Rs400,000. Thus far the KDA engineers had detected five major leakages.
Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2025
