Saddar Bazaar of old Karachi was a pleasant, calm, clean, tree lined area where, in the first half of last century, it was safe for all to walk, to meet, to talk, to loiter. There were, of course, far more bicycles than cars and it was a common sight to see women strolling along under the shade of their parasols.
It was the central shopping area of Karachi in which could be bought all that was needed for life in those distant days. For schoolchildren, there was the famous tiny stationery store, Makanjee Damjee, opening straight onto the street, with old Makanjee sitting on his haunches with all his wares - exercise books, pencils, biscuits, nuts - within easy stretching distance so that he never had to rise to serve his customers.
Now, at the start of this century, under the recently introduced devolution scheme, this old Saddar Bazaar area and its surroundings have evolved into Saddar Town, the 18th town of Karachi, and its elected nazim, Farooq Ahmed Faria, is its administrator.
Since partition Saddar has radically changed. It is now chock-a-block with shops, departmental stores, and street vendors who have encroached upon the pavements. Traffic is so congested, there are so many people, that it is difficult to either move, hear or breathe in the rush, the noise and the pollution. Shopping malls have sprouted up all over the place contravening all building and town planning rules and regulations. The entire area, with its congestion and illegal structures, is now a veritable fire trap.
We in Karachi have all read about the recent fire in the monstrous mall, Karim Centre. After the fire, a non-governmental organization was asked to carry out a survey and its report makes alarming reading. Those citizens of Karachi who are concerned about their own safety and that of their fellow citizens may read on.
Karim Centre is built on four plots in the pre-partition Saddar Bazar area straddling Zaibunissa Street (old Elphinstone Street) and Abdullah Haroon Road (old Victoria Road) near the Post Office. In the mid-1970s, Dedhi Builders had construction plans approved from the Karachi Development Authority for ground plus five floors (with basement parking) on Plots 3/2, 4 and 5/SB-7, and ground plus three floors (without parking) on part of Plot 6/SB-7.
With its atrocious quality of construction, poor circulation planning, sagging floor slabs, excess floors, and its permanently temporary wiring, the project (as all other such shopping malls) has evolved into a disaster zone. Virtually the approximately 300,000 square feet of Karim Centre has been built in excess of the approved plans and stands ground plus six storeys high. All the mandatory parking spaces have been converted and let as tailors' sweatshops. The plethora of substandard shops, all less than 100 sq feet in area, on the seven floors, with their mass of inflammable ware - cloth, all extending into the passageways and balconies, festooned internally and externally with loose electric wiring, has ensured that this shopping mall is a prime fire-trap.
Just after midnight on November 20, while workers were preparing for the anticipated Ramzan-Eid rush, disaster struck. Some 150 shops on the first, second and third floors were gutted. The poorly equipped and inadequately manned fire brigades of the city arrived in due course and did their best to fight the conflagration whilst rushing around Karachi the entire day trying to find the non-existent hydrants and water. Luck was with the trapped people in the building. They managed to get to the roof or on to the balconies, shouted for help and were rescued. It is amazing that there were no fatalities.
Despite the fact that the apparent fire-distress 'signals' in the concrete slabs of the affected areas were noted after the fire by the preliminary inspection team of the Karachi Building Control Authority, the faults have not been repaired. All have been suppressed and no action has been taken, or is planned to be taken, by the Sindh government's regulatory bodies. The burnt structural members are being hurriedly painted over, and the shops are being recommissioned without any structural repair work, or improvement in the hazardous electric wiring, so that they can reopen for the pre-Eid shopping spree. Petrol generators, begging for disaster, continue to chug away in all congested corridors.
Although KDA recognized thirty years ago the illegal building proclivities of the builders involved, to date they have not been warned or penalized, nor have any of their projects, all equally dangerous, been demolished. They have unsavoury and political contacts, and during the 1980s and '90s managed to construct numerous other unauthorized buildings, including multi-storeyed flats/shops in Jamshed Quarters and Garden East that are counted among KBCA's infamous '260 sealed buildings' of 1996.
This week, the KBCA proclaimed in a prominent advertisement in this newspaper: "The allegation with regard to unfettered, unauthorized construction in the city is not wholly true. KBCA makes considerable effort to promptly take cognizance of all such deviations/violations whenever these are observed." (Interestingly the KBCA admits to the allegations being somewhat though not 'wholly' true.) Similar 'cognizance' was taken by KDA and KBCA as far back as 1975. But 25 years down the line, Karim Centre's illegalities stand tall and prominent as a badge of shame on the local government of this city.
The KBCA has also 'taken cognizance' (but no lawful action against the illicit project, the criminal builder, or its own colluding officials) of the under-construction and 140 per cent overbuilt Capital Centre next door to Karim Centre. The mandatory parking spaces and fire-escape stairs have not been provided by the builder, nor have any of the fire-fighting and fire-resistant structural requirements demanded by law been met. The building is now being progressively occupied without the mandatory KBCA 'Occupancy Certificate' having been issued and KBCA is taking no action.
In blatant violation of applicable laws, and with the whole-hearted cooperation of the concerned government agencies (including the Sindh EPA, the KDA/KBCA, Sindh Board of Revenue, the Sindh government's electric inspector, the KESC), a large part of Saddar Town is being surreptitiously converted into crowded, over-built, unhygienic, fire-hazardous, polluted structures, housing garment factories, gold-smith furnaces/workshops, and other semi-industrial concerns.
In 1994, a major explosion in a goldsmith's workshop on Shahrah-e-Iraq killed eight people. Frequent fires and explosions over the years from ever-increasing hazardous misuse of commercial and residential premises have cost numerous lives. The situation is exacerbated by appalling wiring installations and dangerous petrol-generators. This week the local press highlighted the perilous situation at Sarah Hotel on Parr Street, which is being converted into a sarafa bazaar (gold-smiths' bazaar), the shops having their unauthorized workshops and furnaces (fire ?) in the same building.
Other commercial areas in the city are no better. The recent fire in Khaliq Cloth Market at Liaquatabad is mute testimony to the apathy and collusion of the statutory agencies set up to protect the public interest. The Clifton Road hosts numerous illegally commercialized and constructed buildings, with congested passages, flammable sale goods, dangerous permanent temporary wiring, and with no fire-escape or fire-fighting facilities.
The Building Regulations of 1979 state: "The requirements for providing space about buildings are governed by hygienic and fire-fighting considerations." In order to ensure adequate space for fire-fighting, the rescue of persons endangered by fire, and access for fire brigades to the rear of buildings, there must be fire-stairs, compulsory open spaces and other such facilities.
Periodically, the 'friends' Karachi's builders have managed to make in the Sindh government suggest bartering away these non-implemented mandatory requirements in return for due compensation for regularization. What can the citizens expect? Can the local government of this city be expected to graduate from 'taking cognizance' to 'taking action'? Can it be expected to actually implement the law? Can it be expected to sacrifice the 'noora-kushti' that generates crores of rupees in illegal kickbacks to bureaucrats, other servants of the public, and politicians? Can it be expected to uphold the fundamental rights of the citizens of Karachi?
The Saddar Town nazim, Farooq Ahmed Faria, has promised to improve the state of affairs.
A tall order indeed. We wish him luck. He will soon be tested.