PARKS WERE BUILT, NOT OCCUPIED

Since my adulthood, I wished to see the city adorned with greenery. The truth is that the city had not turned into a jungle of concrete by 1970s and various thoroughfares and major parks flaunted lush trees of banyan, fig and neem. When I bought a plot in North Nazimabad, I dedicated a fairly large area for plants and trees. A little while after I became the mayor, all Union Council and town nazims were in knowledge that I value environment, in addition to revival of infrastructure. So, they also began to establish new parks, look after the existing ones and make the roads and clearings of the metropolis green. We allowed them to use the funds allocated for the Khushhal Pakistan Program for the purpose.

It was decided to utilize the city government’s budget to set up a model park in each town. The horticulture authority consulted town nazims on demarcations and work began in several towns simultaneously. More than 10 model parks were in place within a few months, Alhamdulillah. Each of the inaugural ceremonies were attended by thousands of men, women and children. They would pray for our wellbeing, with happiness visible on their faces.

Askari Park Project

The Sabzi Mandi was moved to Super Highway a little before the city government came into being. The extremely high-end land spread over more than 38 acres was on the radar of land mafia and influential figures. We didn’t have enough resources to build a park on such a large area. I spoke with Corps Commander Gen. Tariq Wasim Ghazi and invited him to visit the plot. During the visit, I told him that we don’t want the place occupied and it should instead house a park for the public. I wished for the park to be built by Corps Five along the lines of the Mazar-e-Quaid Park. He responded positively and the city had a large park with the name of Askari Park in a short span. We didn’t have to spend a rupee and the city successfully avoided yet another concrete structure.

Meanwhile, 15 to 20-feet high date palm trees were planted at 200 different spots in Karachi. These had been bought from Khairpur after consultation with the horticulture officials. The youth of Lyari love football and the neighborhood produced several national footballers and boxers who earned accolades. I wanted a football stadium of international standard in Lyari. We were informed about a stadium that lay abandoned from the era of Muhterma Benazir Bhutto, with no interest shown from subsequent regimes to revive it. We spent several millions to complete and beautify the stadium for the youth of Lyari. Moreover, we built and revamped the indoor gymnasium of Sports Complex, Kashmir Road, a project which was on the backburner for years.

Opening of Safari area at Safari Park

The 407-acre Safari Park located in the center of the city, i.e. Gulistan-e-Jauhar was suffering from neglect for considerable time. Until 2004, our team couldn’t do anything about it due to the myriad of issues facing the city. It was now decided to hand it over to the private sector, and tenders were issued to this effect. In April 2004, Dr. Faiyaz Alam suggested opening the wild animals’ enclosure for general public. He said that there are 700 animals of more than 25 breeds in the enclosure, which surprised everyone. A committee was subsequently formed, led by Shoaib Siddiqui and Mansoor Qazi, Dr. Fareed Qadri, Abid Ilyas, and Dr. Faiyaz Alam who had come up with the idea. The body decided to make the park well-lit and run buses to take people inside the Safari area.

The coaches were inaugurated in a simple ceremony held on June 15, 2004, attended by representatives of the media. The Safari area that had been closed for years was now available for public. When the news went out via newspapers and TV channels prominently, scores of people began to visit the park with their families. The next few months saw many animals bought and several facilities initiated, including a wheeler train. Town Nazim, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Abdul Wahab gifted six pairs of ostriches for the park. A six-day bird show was organized from March 20-26, 2005. It was inaugurated by former Governor Sindh Moinuddin Haider. Mumtaz Shamim, an industrialist friend of ours who used to keep valued birds, helped us out a lot in this regard. He brought parrots worth millions and stayed at his designated stall with his kids. The show was witnessed by hundreds of thousands. We also decided to build a four-acre lion enclosure along the lines of Lahore’s zoo. The project worth Rs10 million included two caves to provide the wildcats with a natural environment. The tender was issued, with work commencing before the end of my mayor-ship.

We were contacted by Major (retd) Khalid via EDO Investment Promotion, Raees Paracha. The former military officer owned the company operating chairlift in Ayubia, Murree. He wanted to move his chairlift installed at Quetta’s Hanna Lake to another leisure spot.

The agreement to install a chairlift at Safari Park was made once legal terms were discussed with him by Dr. Faiyaz Alam, Dr. Asif Khan and Mansoor Qazi, and cleared by the legal department. The document was signed with Malik Khalid at my office on June 21, 2005. DCO Fazl-ur-Rehman and Raees Paracha were witnesses to the signing. The company acquired a 10-year contract and was to pay us Rs5 million annually. The chairlift was installed later on and admired by the visitors of the park, but after just a year or so, the company relocated it somewhere else for certain reasons. So, the first chairlift project of the province ended after a short while for reasons unknown.

Improvement of Karachi Zoo

The 42-acre zoo (Gandhi Garden) was not as good as Safari Park, but had a lot of room for improvement. The depletion of animals and species had reduced the number of visitors to a few. I asked the zoo administration to acquire new animals and birds, and we spoke to the provincial wildlife secretary to get Sindh Ibex and Aryals complimentarily. Additionally, animals were exchanged between the Karachi and Lahore zoos. The exchange was carried out by Dr. Faiyaz, Mansoor Qazi and Dr. Kazim via train. The animals brought from Lahore included Bengal Tigers and lions. This was the first ever exchange of wild animals between the two zoos. The museum, fish house and snake house were beautified, followed by an international-level seminar.

Daman e Koh Park could not be developed

An Islamabad-like ‘Daman-e-Koh’ project could not see the light of day because of MQM’s toxic politics. A large reservoir stood between block ‘S’ and block ‘T’ of North Nazimabad. It had been shut for the past 15 to 20 years, with reports from the officers of water board that it isn’t fit for use. DG Parks Liaquat Qaimkhani proposed a huge ‘Daman-e-Koh’ Park at the spot as it neighbored a mountain. The foundation stone of the project was laid on May 9, 2005 during a large gathering. The participants were impressed by a detailed briefing by Liaquat Qaimkhani on the occasion. A few days later, CM Sindh’s advisor and MQM leader Waseem Akhter reached the site with some of the lawmakers and party activists and ordered to halt the work. The horticulture staff was also beaten up. They did so on the pretext that they will revive the reservoir, terming provision of water more important than leisure spots. Ultimately, it resulted in neither the Daman-e-Koh, nor the reservoir. I was particularly sad at how this project was ended because as a resident of North Nazimabad for decades, it was really close to my heart. I had wished for hundreds of thousands of people of the metropolis to spend some quite time with their families at the serene park.

Solid Waste Management

In our meetings, we would often discuss the rapid increase in the per-day waste generation, owing to a rise in the population. In the absence of a proper disposal mechanism, the practice of burning trash at many places, especially slums had multiplied environmental woes. The residents in some areas were also unhappy at the improper waste collection. The issue was prevalent in the UCs and towns where the nazims did not belong to Jamaat-e-Islami. The situation had not improved despite millions being spent on an annual basis, albeit a lot better than what it was before. Some people suggested privatization of solid waste management and a number of companies expressed their interest.

Engr. Izhar-ul-Haq – who was serving a key post in an environment-related consultancy firm – came up with a comprehensive plan to solve the complex issue. In the first phase, the plan was to modernize two pre-allocated landfill sites, one in Jam Chakro, Surjani Town and the other at Deh Gond Pass, adjacent to Northern Bypass. The latter phase would see garbage transfer stations set up in every town to transfer waste to the landfill. We designated available spaces in five towns and issued the tenders, while efforts were on for the rest. The plan envisaged the emptying of large vehicles and trailers at the ground floor of the two-storey garbage transfer station, while smaller vehicles were to offload on the first floor. It was decided to reserve 16 vehicles for each transfer station, with each vehicle’s four rounds in a span of 10 hours. In order to incentivize the process, the city government linked the payments for trash pickup with the weight of the waste being moved to the landfills.

This necessitated a proper mechanism for weightage. The machine installed at the landfill site had been faulty for long but it failed to get anyone’s attention. It was decided to install computerized machines at every landfill site. It was now hoped that the vehicles will also collect waste from other towns too as they were being paid for it. We were also planning to use cycle and motorcycle trollies to collect waste from residential areas, in the third phase of the program. These elements were so well-coordinated that the officers, including the DCO, termed it viable and pragmatic. Unfortunately, the project wasn’t given much attention after my mayor-ship, which caused the issue to deteriorate in the forthcoming years.

Various survey reports and monitoring had pointed to a worsening sea pollution. Most of the residential and industrial wastewater was finding its way directly into the sea due to the water board’s faulty treatment plants. For this too, Izhar-ul-Haq developed a plan for a Wastewater Recycling Project. It envisaged an advanced treatment plant in SITE beside the existing one, which would treat wastewater to make it usable for industrial units. To this effect, we agreed the terms with an Austrian company. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) were subsequently signed and the tenders were being finalized. But the project could not be given a practical look till the deadline. The situation was the same in the case of a water provision project, initiated in view of the rise in the population. We contemplated different projects from day one and came up with a plan to desalinate seawater.

The build-operate-transfer (BOT) based project worth $25 million was scheduled to be completed in three years. The city government signed a MoU with an American company that had expressed interest in the project. While a lot of official affairs required brainstorming and study, sometimes a random incident would result in a project. The Agro-city project was one of them. It began as some butchers called for a strike to push for a rise in meat prices, saying they were forced to buy animals at expensive rates. I spoke with their representative body but they didn’t budge. When the issue finally settled, dairy traders announced a strike asking for an increase in the milk price, citing expensive fodder. As we dealt at both the frontiers, we figured we will not find a way out unless we independently met our basic needs.

After a lot of thinking, we thought of finding a place to grow fodder for dairy animals. Our team members put in a lot of effort and managed to find an approximate 3,000-acre land in Pipri, owned by city government. It was once used to dump the city’s garbage through a ‘trash train’. The train was discontinued but the place remained. Looking at the gigantic site, Izhar-ul-Haq and others said that it could also be used for cattle, fish and poultry farming and growing vegetables. We decided to not limit the project to livestock, but also to set up a slaughterhouse and transport meat to the city, as well as generate electricity from the waste. We named this project the ‘Agro-city’.

In admiration of the government’s sincere efforts for common good, Husnain Cotex – which had been involved in a number of major projects in Lahore – developed a free-of-cost feasibility for the project.

Several major companies showed interest in ‘Agro-city’ and we also signed MoUs with some of them, but then my mayor-ship came to an end. Had Mustafa Kamal taken interest in the project, the city would have averted milk, meat and vegetable crises for a considerable period of time.

بقول غالب

ہزاروں خواہشیں ایسی کہ ہر خواہش پہ دم نکلے

Concluding, I’d like to make a mention of those who don’t usually have sustained ties with state high-ups. It includes people like us who can only ‘offer’ tea and can’t weaponize advertisements. I am referring to journalists. Surprisingly, all those that I happened to meet from this community had a positive mindset and behavior. They opted for positive criticism and praised our initiatives. We soon developed ties based on respect and sincerity and they started to seem like my team members. Shahid Mustafa and Aslam Shah would sometimes act ‘mischievously’ but I knew that they were good at heart and sincere with the city.

I also received strong support from the editors and owners, in particular Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, Hameed Haroon, Mahmood Sham, Mudassir Mirza, Nazir Laghari, Idrees Bakhtiar, Athar Hashmi, Sajjad Mir, Naseer Hashmi, Ahmad Hassan, Abrar Bakhtiar and Rafiq Afghan. Among the reporters, Tahir Aziz (Jang), Azizullah Sharif (Dawn), Shabbir Ibn-e-Adil (PTV), Amir Ahmad Khan and Faisal Aziz (Geo), Faisal Hussain (Express), Shahzad Chugtai (Nawai-e-Waqt), Moosa Kaleem (The News), Amir Lateef (Online), Ashraf (Star), Aslam Shah (Jurrat), Shahid Mustafa (Kainat), Amir Nisar (Khabrain), Shumail Ahmad, Noman Lari and Shabbir Soomro (Ummat), Raja Kamran and Ishtiaq Lodhi (Jasarat) and Sabir Qureshi (Qaumi Akhbar) were a consistent source of encouragement for us with their constructive reports and balanced criticism.

The administrative officers of the mass media team, namely Najmuddin Sikandar, Bashir Sadozai, Zafar Ehsan, Abdul Qadeer, Sattar Javed and Ali Hassan Sajid fulfilled their duties well. They never complained about late hours while corresponding with the media offices that remained open during holidays. The JI members tasked to correspond with media had developed good ties with journalists, so we never had to face any issue in this regard. The media team comprised Dr. Faiyaz, Hanif Akbar, Qazi Siraj, Naufil Shahrukh and Ansar Razi, while Muslim Pervez, Qazi Sadruddin and Abid Ilyas played a key role as the council members.

Not even a lifetime is enough to adequately serve Karachi, or a four-year mayor-ship with limited powers or financial resources. The issues of this city are complex, but the biggest is the lack of interest by the provincial and federal governments to solve them. Karachi pays the highest taxes to the province and the country, but is given very little financial resources in return. The practice of hiring resources in the state-run entities on the basis of their political or personal association has rendered them useless for commoners.

As I received the notification marking the mayor-ship’s conclusion, I paid a farewell visit to the officers and staff, handed over the official vehicle and left for my home with no guilt on my conscience, Alhamdulillah. Islam tells us that every public office is a role that we have been entrusted with, for which we can be held accountable on the Day of Judgment. I never forgot this when I was in JI and I started to exercise increased caution when I became the mayor.This is why I always tried to not let my sons or close relatives visit my office without an urgent need, or leverage my position in anyway. Alhamdulillah, my sons and relatives complied fully, with the officers and other staff being unaware of even the names of my sons after those four years.

The remuneration that I received as the city nazim all went to the bank. When the earthquake hit the northern areas and Azad Kashmir on October 8, 2005, I donated a cheque of the entire sum to Al-Khidmat’s relief fund.

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