KARACHI, Feb 11: Despite the last year announcement made by City Nazim Naimatullah Khan to develop coastal areas, the city government has not carried out any development activity in these areas so far.

City Nazim had said that these areas would not only become a source of income for the city government, but, also help providing job opportunities to the people residing along the coastline with different development projects.

The city government also failed to create a separate department for the development of coastal belt, as announced by the City Nazim. It was earlier decided that the proposed department would develop and beautify long coastal belt from Clifton to Sonera beach in Keamari Town.

The fishermen community has a lot of complaints against the city government for ignoring their problems. The fishermen say that beaches and waterfront holds tremendous potential for the promotion of tourism, vis-a-vis water sports i.e. sea-fishing (both from shore, inshore and offshore), boating, sailing, and surfing etc.

About the jetty facilities, the local fishermen said that a few jetties (with piers and ramps) should be built in the fishing villages, including Sonera Point and Hawksbay.

Small marinas (for the common citizens) with basic amenities like fresh water and electricity should also be made available, they suggested. Elected representatives of the area said that the coastal areas were being ignored in the Karachi Development Package of Rs29 billion, which was announced by President Musharraf.

They alleged that the city government was planing to spend all the funds in urban areas. All the projects had already been planned in this regard and work on a number of projects had also been initiated, they said.

The representatives of the rural areas claimed that they had sent several letters to City Nazim and DCO to include their projects in the package, but, no attention had been paid in this regard.

Despite the inception of local government system, the people of coastal areas were still deprived of basic facilities, including water, electricity, health and education.

An elected representative of UC-8, Keamari Town, Mir Ghulam Sarwar Raees said that the health-care facilities were not satisfactory in fishermen localities.

He said that hundreds of women and children died due to lack of health-care facilities in the union council. He said that the inhabitants of the area were mostly poor and malnourished.

The poor fishermen could not afford to visit the city for medical treatments and most of them died due to lack of health facilities in their areas, he remarked. - PPI