KARACHI, March 28: Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil has stressed the need for strengthening mutual liaison and coordination between the city government and Karachi University to expand the scope of serving the city and citizens.

She was speaking as chief guest at the concluding session of a two-day seminar on “Local government system, problems and opportunities,” organised by the Public Administration Department of Karachi University.

The seminar was addressed by Vice-Chancellor Dr Pirzada Qasim, Public Administration Department Chairman Dr Abu Zar Wajdi, Dr Akhtar Baloch and others.

The naib nazim said university teachers and students could do a lot to serve their city by doing research on different aspects of local government.

Referring to “Hamara Karachi” celebrations, she said the cooperation extended by teachers and students of Karachi University on various occasions, particularly by the students of history department who served as guides during visits to various historical buildings, provided people an opportunity to see and get information about the historical buildings of Karachi.

About the present local government system, she said it has been introduced at three tiers in which women representation had been increased from 10 to 33 percent and as such in Karachi 830 women were playing representative role including 59-59 at district and town levels and 712 at union council level. She called for doing away with double standards in the country and said, “We want women economically stable with equal opportunities.”

She described the Citizen Community Boards a model of public-private partnership and said the concept of devolution of powers to grossroots level was a legal procedure of participation of elected and non-elected people in the government’s development and non-development activities.

Through this system, she explained, citizens could themselves chalk out welfare schemes and get them completed through 80 per cent funding while they would have to spend only 20 per cent funds. She said 25 persons could join hands to form Citizen Community Boards.

Nasreen Jalil said 67 per cent land of Karachi was under control of other organisations. In the past, she recalled, the defunct KMC used to have representation in these organisations. “Now when an elected council exists, it is necessary to give representation to the elected people in these organisations for solving problems of people,” she said.

She said the control of more than half of the land was with those organisations which were neither answerable to the elected representatives nor these elected people had representation in these organisations as a result of which a number of problems were pending unsolved and the spirit of present local government system was being affected.

She pointed out that effective implementation of Master Plan would be possible only when all the civic agencies would be responsible and answerable to City Nazim.

At the concluding session, a number of proposals and recommendations were made including awareness campaigns about the works of provincial and district governments, devolution of city police, accountability in every sector to ensure stability and good governance.—APP