ON Aug 4, 1976, it was announced that the Pakistan Railways Diesel Workshop in Karachi had rebuilt a 25-year-old locomotive by making structural changes to its body and replacing its old engine by a new powerful Canadian diesel engine. The Canadian government had gifted to Pakistan Railways four 2,000HP engines worth $750,000. Three more locomotives were to be rebuilt by the month of December. The Railways was also planning to rebuild in five years’ time 47 locomotives imported from the US in the early 1950s. The lifespan of the above-mentioned machines having 1,400HP had expired a few years back and were being used to pull shuttle trains only. Instead of scrapping each one of them, Pakistan Railways had decided to breathe a new life into them.
On Aug 5, the Chairman of the Pakistan Railways Board, M.A. Aziz, formerly pressed into re-service the 25-year-old locomotive. Speaking at a special ceremony held at the workshop, he praised the workers and engineers of the department for doing an excellent job, and advised them to work harder to improve upon their individual and collective efficiencies to serve the nation in a better way. Chairman of the board also expressed gratitude to the Canadian government for gifting four 2000HP engines.
While rebuilding was taking place in one corner of the city, a couple of days earlier on Aug 3, the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) partially demolished a building on Jehangir Road for being unauthorised and constructed in violation of building control regulations. According to the corporation, the construction company which had made the structure ‘managed to get the building plan approved’ and had not carried out the adjustments to which it had committed in writing.
On Aug 4, the KMC suspended the idea of completely demolishing the building on Jehangir Road complying with the directives of the Sindh Chief Minister, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi. The chief minister, after the construction company which had made the structure approached him [and presented its side of the story], directed the corporation to submit a complete report in light of the provisions of the relevant regulations. Similarly, Mr Jatoi asked the building contractors concerned not to undertake any further construction work until the dispute was over.
On Aug 7, the KMC hogged the headlines once more for an entirely different reason when it was learnt that the Zoo Advisory Committee of the corporation had decided to purchase more than two dozen animals for the city’s Zoological Garden. In that connection, it had forwarded its recommendations to the administrator of the KMC for approval. The new animals to be bought included two pairs each of Sindh ibex, markhor, Marcopolo sheep, Himalayan ibex, brown bear, urial, barking deer and one pair of leopards. The animals not found in Pakistan were to be imported from the countries of their origin. In the ongoing financial year, the KMC had allocated a sum of Rs155,000 for purchasing of animals. The need for the import was felt because at the time there was one urial, one brown bear and one leopard in the zoo.
Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2026
