SC asks CM Sindh to sit with Mayor to save 'massive collapse' of Karachi

KARACHI: Expressing concerns over the worsening conditions of civic infrastructure in Karachi, the Supreme Court observed that the provincial government and local civic agencies appear uninterested to work for the metropolis.

It ordered Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to sit with Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar and all civic agencies to resolve all issues with ‘absolute promptness’ to save the city from ‘massive collapse.’

A two-judge bench comprising Justices Gulzar Ahmed and Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel gave these directions in a detailed ordered issued lately after hearing a case of razing illegal encroachments from the metropolitan city.

The bench said: “We do expect the Sindh CM [to] sit with all the agencies of the city of Karachi and also mayor Karachi to resolve these and other grave issues facing the city and such be done with absolute promptness for that the situation is worsening day by day.”

‘Karachi looks like a big slum’

The bench noted in its order: “There are no trees, no greenery, no parks, no playgrounds, no roads, no hospitals, no universities, no schools, no colleges except those which were made by the government somewhere about 40 years ago.”

It further stated: “No water, no sewerage, no safe and secure and decent recreation and shopping areas. There is on all roads katcha or pukka dirt, filth, heaps of garbage, sewerage water, defaced walls, incomplete and unpainted ghostly haunted structures, ruined buildings in state of imminent collapse, stray dogs menace, no fumigation of the city to rid itself form dangerous life-threatening germs and mosquitoes. Graveyard spaces have become scarce.”

“It is no more a city of lights which is being portrayed by the city administration nor is this the city of gardens. Karachi has no semblance of a city rather it looks like a big chunk of a slum.”