The town is sandwiched between Thatta district on the west, Gadap Town in the north, Malir Town, Landhi Town and Korangi cantonment on the east and has approximately 25 kilometres of coastline on the south, stretching from Ibrahim Haidery to Dargah Shah Hussain in Union Council Ghaghar.
The town has seven union councils - Ibrahim Haidery (population about 43,583), Rehri (31,506), Cattle (popularly called Bhens) Colony (41,969), Quaidabad (58,060), Landhi (39,201), Gulshan-i-Hadeed (65,242) and Ghaghar (37,123).
Its population, spread over a large area, is concentrated in Union Council Gulshan-i-Hadeed where the Steel town is located, while its most thinly populated union council is Rehri. Ibrahim Haidery and Rehri Union Councils represent areas totally dependent on the fishing industry. People in the Ghaghar and Landhi union councils are involved in agriculture.
Clean and safe water is one of the major problems being faced by the residents. Though the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board’s pipelines bringing in approximately 350 million gallons of water daily from the Indus river to Karachi pass through Bin Qasim Town, an overwhelming majority of the town’s villages have not been given water connections and have to depend on well water for drinking as well as agricultural purposes.
A large number of industries have been established upstream most of which do not bother to follow the National Environment Quality Standards while discharging their highly hazardous effluents in open nullahs and in the Malir river. As a result of seepage from these nullahs and the river, the subsoil aquifer has been contaminated. Many cases of Hepatitis C have been reported from the area. Vegetables grown in the contaminated water are also supplied to Karachi.
Numerous goths in the town have not been given electricity connections despite the fact that high tension lines bring in power for numerous industries that have been established here. Six polling stations out of the 16 in Ghaghar union council do not have electricity connections.
Ghaghar can indeed be termed as the most underdeveloped area of Karachi, and if somebody from Mangan Goth wants to go to the town office located at Jam Kando Goth, Razakabad, he has to spend between four and five hours travelling the 45 kilometres, a considerable part of which has to be covered on foot, the rest by bus, whenever one comes by.
The population of the town can be broadly divided into five categories -– fishing communities residing along the coastline, agriculturists, dairy farmers, labourers and workers employed in the area’s industries, and white-collar workers.
Bin Qasim Town areas close to main Karachi have relatively better civic amenities and facilities such as schools, hospitals, clean water, etc, while people living in far off rural areas do not have many facilities.
Over 235,000 cattle are housed in the numerous cattle pens (baras) in the Cattle Colony union council and provide over 2.5 million litres of milk to the city daily. The city district government collects a tax of Rs150 per cattle head. A slaughterhouse is also located nearby and the city government collects tax from it as well. But it does precious little to keep the area clean. Only a fraction of the cattle dung is removed while the rest keeps on piling up in the vicinity and the town has to launch an operation clean-up every now and then to keep the area inhabitable for people and cattle.
As to the population mix, in Ibrahim Haidery UC, the population is overwhelmingly Sindhi and Balochi speaking. A second big group is formed by Bengali-speaking people.
Urdu, Punjabi and Pushto speaking dominate in Quaidabad UC. The Cattle Colony is largely Punjabi speaking. Gulshan-i-Hadeed has a combination of all ethnicities with Sindhis forming the slightly bigger group.
Union Council Rehri is again overwhelmingly Sindhi and Balochi and while the number of other people is negligible.
Ashiq Ali Jamote of the Awam Dost panel, backed by the PPP, had become nazim of Bin Qasim Town in the last local body elections. Five of the seven union council nazims were PPP-backed candidates and the seventh union council had gone to a candidate supported by the PPP Shaheed Bhutto group.
However, by the time the 2002 general elections came round, the group developed some differences with the PPP and Mehmood Alam Jamote (UC nazim) contested as part of the Rajuni group and at present is representing the constituency in the Sindh Assembly. The other MPA representing the town is Sajid Jokhio of the PPP.
Two National Assembly constituencies overlap Bin Qasim Town and the seats are held by Shamim Siddiqui (MQM), who is also a member of the federal cabinet, and Sher Mohammad Baloch of the PPP.
Political parties active in the local elections now include the MQM, PPP, MMA, PML-Q, ANP, PPP (Shaheed Bhutto) and Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz. Approximately 4,000 Bengali-speaking voters are registered in the town.