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The MRV Plan – 1952
This was the first post-partition attempt at a master plan for the city
of Karachi. It was prepared by MRV, a Swedish firm. It created a federal
secretariat, legislative buildings and a university around a large
independence square to the north-east of the city. In addition, it
sought to rehabilitate the refugee population in ten-storey high blocks
of flats along the Lyari corridor. It designed a railway system for mass
transit and predicted that the population of Karachi in the year 2000
would be three million!
The plan was not implemented. The reasons for this are somewhat complex.
In 1953 student riots supported by the proletariat erupted and a number
of governments fell within a year. As a result, the policy makers
questioned the appropriateness of having a university next to
administrative and legislative areas. Some also questioned the
appropriateness of having refugee colonies within the city or
alternatively, having the Federal Capital Area adjacent to metropolitan
Karachi.
As a result, plans were made to develop the Federal Capital at Gadap and
then on the north Karachi hills. Both locations were far away from the
university. Neither of the plans were implemented, for the decision on
whether the federal capital or the proletariat should move out, could
not be taken.
The Ayub Era
The Greater Karachi Resettlement Plan
In 1958, Ayub Khan established military rule in Pakistan and took a
number of decisions that have affected Karachi and its relationship with
the rest of Pakistan. Ayub decided to shift the capital to Islamabad. He
also decided that the refugees should leave the city and the working
classes migrating from other areas of Pakistan should also be
discouraged from living within the city centre. To achieve these ends he
hired a Greek planner, Doxiades, to prepare what is known as the Greater
Karachi Resettlement Plan. The plan consisted of developing two
satellite towns, Landhi-Korangi to the east and New Karachi to the north
of the city. These satellite towns are about 25 km from the city centre.
Industrial estates were developed as part of the satellite town plans
and industrialists were offered incentives to invest here. At the same
time core houses were developed to house the refugee population and
other squatter settlement residents. It was assumed that these
populations, who were being forcibly moved to these locations, would
find employment here. However, that did not happen as industrialisation
was slow to develop and the owners of the new core houses refused to pay
their instalments which were to finance the continuation of the housing
process. Consequently, by 1964, the programme was abandoned.
However, the Greater Karachi Resettlement Plan had a number of important
repercussions on Karachi in social, physical and economic terms. Inner
city refugee and squatter settlements were bulldozed. It became
impossible to build new squatter settlements within the metropolitan
area. But then, there was an unmet demand for housing. This resulted in
the creation of squatter settlements on the roads that connected the
city with Landhi-Korangi and New Karachi. These settlements were created
along the dry natural drainage channels and were developed by middlemen
who in later years were to become the main suppliers of land for housing
the poor and a powerful interest group. The plan also created Karachi’s
transport problems and converted a compact high density multi-class city
to a low density sprawl with the poor living far away from the city and
the rich in its immediate vicinity. Much of Karachi’s “ethnic” problems
are directly related to this aspect of the Greater Karachi Resettlement
Plan.
The other problem that the plan created is related to Saddar and its
role as the centre for cultural and intellectual life in Karachi. After
the shifting of the refugee population large number of people had to
travel to the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE), the Port, Central
Business District (CBD) and to the old city wholesale markets from
Landhi-Korangi, New Karachi and the new squatter settlements. Since
there was no proper road network at that time, this entire movement was
through Saddar. This transformed Saddar into a transit camp and led to
its environmental degradation. This, along with other factors discussed
later in the text, led to the death of Saddar as a city centre that
catered to all classes. The sociological and political repercussions of
this death have never been studied.
Demographic and Related Changes in the Ayub Era
Between 1951 and 1972, the population of Karachi increased by 217 per
cent. Most of this increase took place during the Ayub Era (1958-68).
There are a number of reasons for this. In 1958 the Kotri Barrage on the
lower Indus was commissioned. As a result, the Indus delta shrank from
3,500 square (sq.). km to 250 sq. km. Large number of villages, mostly
of fishermen were left without drinking water. They migrated to Karachi
and catered to the newly developing fishing industry. In the early
sixties, the government also started giving credit and land for poultry
farms. This growth was linked with the growth of the fish industry which
started to produce fish feed both for local consumption and for export.
Industrialisation and introduction of green revolution technologies were
the corner stones of Ayub’s development policies. This increased
international and local trade and more than doubled Karachi’s port
activities. This also meant increased rural produce. During Ayub’s
decade the Punjab alone produced an average surplus of 360 million
rupees per year from agriculture and most of this was invested in
Karachi’s economy2. Again, in 1961, the government created the fisheries
department and aggressively promoted mechanised fishing, nylon nets and
credit for fishing activity. This was done under a FAO/government
programme and led to a major movement of fishermen from all over the
riverine and coastal areas of Pakistan to Karachi. The fish harbour was
added to considerably during this period and densification of the
residential areas around it and in the old city and its suburbs have
taken place as a result.
The military rulers of Pakistan were from the North-West Frontier
Province (NWFP). They patronised the people of their area and helped
them in establishing business, industry and transport activity in
Karachi. In addition, they were recruited as port, industrial and
building site labour as they were considered more hardworking and
reliable than the locals. They were also recruited in the police and
security forces and by the late sixties, Karachites, of refugee or local
origin had been elbowed out of these professions. Before the Ayub Era,
transport companies were owned and operated by Baluchis, refugees and
Sindhis, and so were taxis. Building contractors for large government
projects were also local Sindhis and Balochis.
The son of the President owned a truck manufacturing industry and the
development of road transport and related infrastructure was considered
progress. This line of thinking was supported by the “oil lobby” and
slowly road transport for cargo movement between Karachi Port and the
rest of the county, took over from rail transport, adding to Karachi’s
transport and traffic problems. Also, most of the route permits for
inter city truck movement were given to the people belonging to the NWFP
in general, and the President’s constituency, in particular.
The above actions of the Ayub government added to Karachi’s political
tensions and violence because economic activities and professions became
identified with one or another ethnic group and frequently the interests
of the economic activities conflicted. In addition, Ayub was a great
supporter of a centralised state. He banned regional languages for
education purposes and closed down the Sindhi press and publications.
The refugee population supported him in this, since in their way of
thinking, it meant the promotion of Urdu, their language, which had also
been declared as Pakistan’s national language. This further divided
Sindh into the Sindhi speaking and Urdu speaking camps.
The Karachi Master Plan 1975-85
The failure of the Greater Karachi Resettlement Plan (GKRP) forced the
government in the mid to late sixties to seek alternative solutions to
the housing and infrastructure problems of the city. For housing they
developed displaced persons’ townships some distance from the city where
people from inner city squatter settlements or katchi abadis were
relocated. These settlements had no infrastructure but the state
provided government transport and water supply by tankers. Most of these
settlements were to the north and west of the city. Around them,
squatter settlements developed, making use of the facilities that were
being offered to the formal settlements. Soon these squatter settlements
became much larger than their neighbouring formal settlements. The state
tolerated these settlements as they were far away from the city.
Most of the city transport activities at that time were either owned by
the state or by a private sector that was effectively regulated by the
state. However, they were inadequate and the state did not develop
policies that provided support to the private sector in transport and
nor did it have the finances to build an effective public sector owned
transportation system. Port facilities, especially related to cargo
handling and warehousing, were also insufficient. Meanwhile, the
wholesale markets in the old city were expanding and facing problems of
access as the old city consisted of narrow winding roads. Storage
facilities for them were insufficient. In addition, bulk water supply,
sewage and drainage facilities, transport terminals, mass transit
systems and social sector infrastructure were required if the city’s
increasing needs were to be serviced. Against this backdrop, the
government of Pakistan in 1968 asked for UNDP assistance for preparing a
master plan for the city of Karachi.
The Karachi Master Plan 1975-85 was a landmark in the planning history
of Karachi. By hindsight, one can say that it identified Karachi’s
problems and growth with remarkable accuracy. It made plans for a
rational road network; housing, consisting of sites and services and the
upgrading of katchi abadis (then a radical step); bulk water supply;
transport terminals and warehousing; land management; bye-passes to the
city; mass transit and ecological issues.
In the plan period only the road networks were built and these too in a
substandard manner. However, they have eased and rationalised movement
between different areas of the city. The very ambitious housing
programme which developed over 230,000 sites, mostly for low income
residents, was a complete failure. This is because the plots were too
expensive for the target groups; the process of acquiring them was long
and cumbersome; one had to wait many years before they were developed;
and complex bye-laws and procedures had to be followed to construct on
them. In addition, loans for house building were not available to non-loanworthy
applicants and most of the poor were non-loanworthy. Thus, the vast
majority of these sites have remained vacant. In almost all cases they
have been purchased by the middle classes for speculation and their
infrastructure has collapsed due to non use. Bulk water supply was also
developed but its construction quality was frequently substandard, as a
result of which there are more than 30 per cent losses in transmission
due to leakages in the system.
The other components of the plan could not be implemented and nor could
the institutional arrangements developed by the plan for the management
of the city. Legal cover was not given to the plan either, perhaps
because that would deprive the Karachi Development Authority (KDA)
Director General, the Chief Minister and/or other ministers of the
discretionary powers that they now enjoy and through which they can
bye-pass rules and regulations. These discretionary powers are essential
to buy and reward political support, raise money for election purposes
by sale of government land and promote corruption.
Because of the non-implementation of the 1975-85 Karachi Master Plan,
the physical and social sector needs of the city could not be met. The
demands increased and the administration became increasingly helpless
and as such, inefficient and corrupt. As a result, the informal sector
expanded and its various interest groups came to be major suppliers of
the physical, social and financial requirements of the citizens of
Karachi. In addition, the 1977 military take over added a new dimension
to the politics of the city of Karachi which is discussed latter.
The Bhutto Era 1972-77
During the
Bhutto era, a number of physical, social and political trends developed
that have persisted. First, the prime minister was a great supporter of
the poor and derived a lot of his political strength from the katchi
abadis. Thus, using regularisation and upgrading of katchi abadis as a
political gimmick became a part and parcel of Pakistani politics. This
gave fresh impetus to the development of katchi abadis and political
power to their muscle men and activists, who became members of his
People’s Party. Second, the Bhutto era introduced populism in the
politics of Pakistan and this led to the development of a pop culture
closely linked to Pakistani folklore. Sindhi saints (those from other
provinces also) were officially glorified and the prime minister and his
party members visited their tombs and attended their urs (birthday
celebration of holly men). Regional cultures were also promoted and
regional languages, at least symbolically, made a big comeback. Karachi,
for the first time since 1947, became the capital of the re-created
province of Sindh whose rural representatives dominated its Assembly. In
addition, they patronised the people from their constituency in getting
jobs and admissions to educational institutions. A rural-urban quota for
admissions to colleges and for government service was also introduced in
Sindh to support the “backward” Sindhi speaking population. All these
steps created a distance between Karachi’s refugee population and the
Sindhi speaking population of the province. Third, the prime minister
had a vision for Karachi. He saw Karachi as a cosmopolitan international
city whose economic interests could be served if it could cater to the
entertainment and business needs of the newly independent Gulf states.
To this end, five star hotels, cabarets, casinos, an active race course
and similar activities were planned and some of them were executed. In
addition, high income areas and posh neighbourhoods were also developed
with plans for golf courses, surfing and boating. All this, further
divided the city in physical terms between the rich and the poor and was
responsible to some extent for the 1977 upheaval that forced Bhutto out
of power and brought in the army.
The Bhutto government also promoted high rise residential buildings and
gave plots at subsidised prices to the developers so that they could
build apartments. Bridge financing was also provided through the
recently nationalised banks to building firms. Building bye-laws were
changed so as to increase building heights and covered areas. These
policies led to the creation of a powerful developer’s lobby in Karachi
which over the years, has become a very important and wealthy interest
group. These policies also changed Karachi’s skyline, densified the old
city and over-loaded its already fragile infrastructure, and created
vertical slums in the middle and lower middle income suburbs. It also
led to the creation of a “flat culture” which is now asserting itself
against the substandard work being done by developers.
The above mentioned policies of the Bhutto government coincided with the
migration of Pakistani labour, professionals and entrepreneurs to the
Gulf States. The money that they sent back helped in supporting the new
real estate industry since most of it was invested in urban land and
house and/or flat building. Also, a large consumer class developed as a
result of Gulf money and wholesale and retail markets for consumer goods
were required. These were not provided and they developed in an ad-hoc
manner wherever open space was available and could be encroached upon.
Alternatively, they were built in the already congested “native” city or
on the sites of demolished buildings in and around Saddar Bazaar.
The 1977-87 Period
The Army took over in 1977 and during the 1977-87 decade the military
dictatorship’s main concern was to keep Sindh divided so that no major
movement against it could take place in the province. To this end, it
supported all ethnic organisations with money, arms and establishment
support so that they could fight each other, or when necessary come
together to oppose the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, the
dictatorship’s main political rival. Officials were appointed to
important positions only if they were willing to give support to this
game. The provisions of the Karachi Master Plan were violated to provide
land at throw-away prices to political opponents so as to purchase their
loyalties; encroachments on amenity plots were encouraged for the same
reason; building contracts and permits were given in exchange for
support for the regime’s policies and political loyalties mattered more
than the sanctity of law and institutions. Political opponents of the
regime were arrested and detained illegally and the police force also
became subservient to the political objectives of the regime. No
development activity was initiated during this period and the sense of
deprivation in Karachi and in rural Sindh increased, pulling these
Siamese twins in two different directions.
These trends were further complicated as they were accompanied by the
influx of cheap arms and drugs into Karachi. The drug money financed the
Afghan War and the arms, also the result of the war, were used to build
up the strength of rival ethnic groups in Sindh. The city administration
has never made any attempts to curb the drug and arms trade. On the
contrary, the police killed a number of anti-drug activists in the city
in the eighties and still protects drug suppliers and persecutes the
anti-drug activists.
This state of affairs led to a collapse of institutions and the
emergence of powerful interest lobbies that provide services and also
determine government policies or make those that counter their
interests, inoperable. Huge investments have been made by these lobbies,
the source of which cannot be determined. The growth of katchi abadis
has increased; formal developer built housing has also increased with
huge initial investments from the developers; a large tanker mafia
supplies water to the city; an informal but sophisticated recycling
industry has emerged; and the informal job market has expanded. In
addition, transport is now entirely controlled by the financiers who
give credit to individuals for purchasing vehicles. All these issues are
examined later in the text.
It was during this period that the second generation of Karachi city
dwellers came of age. They rejected the politics of their parents who
believed in a strong centre and also identified themselves strongly with
the religious parties. This younger generation has distanced itself from
the politics of Sindh and Pakistan as a whole since they cannot identify
with them and consider them to be feudal in nature. In addition, this
younger generation is contemporary in its thinking and outlook and its
culture has conflicted with the official “Islamic” culture of the Zia
era and of the post-Zia governments. These trends have increased the gap
between this generation and the establishment.
Most of this generation lives in the vast lower and middle-middle income
suburbs to the north and north-east of the city. These suburbs are
densifying rapidly. In addition, the younger educated generation of the
katchi abadis is not dissimilar in cultural terms from the younger
residents of the lower and middle-middle income suburbs.
The 1987-97 Decade
This period is dominated by the rise of the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM)
which has dominated the politics of Karachi and won all the local,
provincial and national elections from the city. This has made the MQM
the king-maker at the provincial level and an important player in
national politics. This has brought it into conflict with the Sindhi
nationalists at one level and forced it to collaborate with them at
another.
This decade has also brought back some form of democracy to Pakistan.
However, the administration that the political parties inherited, had
little or no experience left of dealing with elected political
governments. In addition, most of the members of the political
governments too, had little or no administrative experience. Many of
them were the leftovers of the Zia era and many more represented
constituencies that had suffered under the long years of dictatorship.
The former behaved as if the dictatorship still existed and the latter
tried to compensate, at all costs, their constituencies for the
sufferings they had been subjected to in the Zia era. These factors,
along with the controversy and conflict around Zia’s legacy and an
absence of a national political consensus, have been responsible for a
further collapse of state institutions and the promotion of corruption,
nepotism and the purchasing of political support.
As a result of what has been described above, government jobs, contracts
(even small ones), consultancies, admissions to educational institutions
and permits for businesses are all given on the basis of political
patronage. Since politics has been ethnicised, this means that they are
given on an ethnic basis. Also, to win loyalties, in the 1987-97 period,
thousands of jobs have been created in government line departments that
were not really required. For example, in 1996 there were 14,500
employees in the Karachi Water and Sewage Board (KWSB), whereas only
about 6,000 were required. Under pressure from the World Bank 5,100 were
removed through a Golden Hand Shake3. KDA staff strength is around 7,000
plus and its Director General is on record as saying that he requires no
more than 2,000 staff to run the organisation. Similar figures can be
quoted for the KMC and in the Pakistan Steel Mills the surplus staff is
much higher. Each party in power recruits people from the ethnic groups
that supported it. This excessive over-staffing is one of the main
reasons why all these organisations, except the KMC, are on the verge of
bankruptcy.
The domination of the MQM in Karachi has been seen by the Sindhi
nationalists as a threat to the physical unity of Sindh. This domination
has also isolated the Pakhtun and the powerful Punjabi business
community in the city. As a result, in the election process the Mohajirs
vote for the MQM, the Sindhis and Baloch for the Pakistan Peoples Party
(PPP), the Pakhtuns for the Awami National Party (ANP) and the large
Punjabi business community and its allies for the Muslim League. The MQM
has also split into two (the splinter group is supported by the
establishment) and there is considerable in-fighting between the two
groups and between other political groupings for turf. The drugs and
guns syndrome is a part and parcel of this struggle for “turf” and is
accompanied by extorting protection money from the areas that are under
the control of each group. Law enforcing agencies support this extortion
and in many areas they have a share in it. Newspaper reports seem to
suggest that the political leadership does not have control on the
extorters, who it has disowned repeatedly, and who claim to be their
members at the street level.
During the 1987-97 decade a number of ad-hoc institutional experiments
have also been carried out. The KMC was divided into four zonal councils
which were re-grouped again since nothing was done to make the zonal
councils effective and financially autonomous of the KMC. Again, the KMC
has now been subdivided into urban district councils. During the last
Peoples Party regime, the KDA was subdivided into the KDA, the Malir
Development Authority (MDA), and the Lyari Development Authority (LDA).
Opponents of this division claim that it was done because Malir and
Lyari were both strongholds of the Peoples Party and consisted of Sindhi
speaking populations. These ad-hoc changes have further weakened local
government and development institutions and further consolidated the
politics of ethnicity.
From 1997 onwards, and especially since 1987, the planning, development
and maintenance agencies have not been able to function for reasons
explained above. Although they have adequate staff, they now work
entirely through consultants. Also, their revenue per capita has fallen
in real terms and they increasingly rely on foreign loans, which come
with foreign consultants, for financing their planning and development
projects. It can be safely said that the consultant and contractor
lobbies now determine Karachi’s needs and development plans and as such
these plans are grandiose and have very little to do with the reality of
the city.
The last decade has also seen the rise of advocacy NGOs, pressure groups
and community activists. Their activity has led to a dialogue between
the ineffective state organisations and the people. It has also given
the opportunity to concerned civil servants and technocrats to support
the NGOs and pressure groups.
The Karachi Development Plan 2000
On the expiry of the 1975-85 Karachi Master Plan period, work on the
Karachi Development Plan 2000 was begun by the KDA with UNDP assistance.
The plan document was completed in 1990. Rs 470 million were spent on
the plan preparation and the hardware (computers, digital mapping
equipment) that accompanied it. Essentially the plan consisted of a
computer model that would monitor developments in Karachi so that
investments could be directed appropriately. It also contained important
recommendations for planning and a related institutional set-up which
included the setting up of an independent Karachi Division Physical
Planning Agency (KDPPA) supported by a steering committee and an
implementation board. Building control in this arrangement was to be
subservient to the KDPPA.
However, the monitoring and related planning exercise could not be
carried out without a constant supply of data for which no system was
proposed by the Plan. In addition, the plan was prepared at a stage when
much of Karachi’s civic needs were being taken care of by powerful
interest groups rather than by the civic agencies. A study of the role
of these interest groups was never undertaken and nor were they
consulted during the planning process, except at a superficial level.
Due to these reasons, the entire set-up created for the Karachi
Development Plan 2000 is now ineffective. In addition, the plan was
never given legal cover as its Steering Committee could not meet to
approve it. Many of its important provisions (such as, not developing
any more land till the over 200,000 vacant plots are built upon) are
being violated.
Giving legal cover to the Karachi Development Plan 2000 would have meant
the creation of institutional arrangements that would have make it
difficult, if not impossible, to use Karachi’s land and real estate
resources for political patronage and corruption. It would also have
eliminated the discretionary powers that ministers and senior
bureaucrats enjoy in interpreting certain aspects related to rules and
regulations on urban development issues. Maybe that is why the approval
of the Plan was not a priority with the successive governments that have
followed each other in quick succession after the Plan was completed in
1990.
Since the Plan has not been given legal cover and relevant institutional
arrangements have not been made, development proposals for the city are
constantly made and implemented by various line departments without
referring them to the Master Plan Department for approval or comments.
As a result, fragmented development takes place as there is no
co-ordination among the agencies making and implementing these
development proposals. In addition, the Karachi Building Control
Authority (KBCA) has taken over the function of determining land use,
something that the Karachi Master Plan Department should do. These
changes, often involving high-rise commercial development, are made
without any urban design exercises. Much of Karachi’s environmental
degradation is a result of this ad-hocism.
Footnotes
1. Government of Pakistan Census Reports, 1951.
2. H. Meyerink: Karachi’s Growth in the Historical Perspective. Paper in
“Between Basti Dwellers and Bureaucrats”, Pergamon Press, 1983.
3. Source: URC from KWSB Reports.
Source Understanding Karachi by Arif Hasan, Muhammad Younus and Akbar
Zaidi
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