IN the first week of September 1976, Karachi received heavy rains. The downpour continued for a week. On Sept 7, this newspaper reported that the spell of rain that began on Sept 5 had brought misery and hardship to the thousands of people living near riverbeds, in low-lying areas, hutments and kutcha houses. More than 500 hut dwellers closest to the banks of the Malir River in the Mehmoodabad area were shifted to two relief centres set up at the Karachi Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) primary schools in Azam Basti and Mehmoodabad. The shifting continued from the night of Sept 5 to the morning of Sept 6 in anticipation of the rise in the water levels of the river. In other parts of the city, in Manzoor and Akhtar colonies, a number of people who needed help were evacuated by the Pakistan Navy’s personnel. The Korangi road causeway beyond Defence Society was submerged. The traffic on the route, therefore, had to be diverted via Landhi. The situation in Nazimabad and North Nazimabad was no different. There, open-storm water drains in no time got filled up with soil. The roads dug up for laying telephone cables in different parts of the city also caved in.

Despite the disturbance that the monsoon season had caused, the government was confident about its plans for infrastructural development. On Sept 8, Sindh’s Local Bodies Minister Jam Sadiq Ali said the federal government was putting special emphasis on upgrading slums in the province of Sindh, particularly in Karachi. In that connection, he mentioned, the government had already formed a ministry of rural development. The minister was talking to a 14-member delegation of the regional study tour of human settlement, sponsored by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Giving details of the slum areas in the capital of the province, Mr Ali said there were 150 to 200 slums in Karachi, and the provincial government had succeeded in upgrading 75 of them. Efforts were being made to provide amenities to other slums as well. The minister informed the delegation that in order to discourage the inflow of people into Karachi from rural areas, the Sindh government was preparing a comprehensive plan for providing better incentives to other cities. He added, every year about 200,000 people came to Karachi because the city offered job opportunities and better living conditions.

As far as the cultural goings-on were concerned, on Sept 9, an exhibition titled Sindh in Canadian Colours, a collection of 20 watercolour paintings by distinguished artist Ghulam Mustafa, opened at the Atelier B M Gallery. The artist, who had migrated to Canada five years back, was on a six-week visit to Pakistan. The visitors to the gallery liked his works, especially the exhibits called ‘Thatta street scene’ and ‘Karachi’. Two of Mr Mustafa’s paintings, the media was told, adorned the main hall of the biggest library in Montreal, the city where he now lived. He was also an art teacher at the Art and Craft Department of Saint-Laurent High School in Montreal.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2026