During the 2010 monsoon season, the city of Karachi was lashed by unprecedented torrential rains. As a result, a number of streetlights of Phase-VIII in the Defence Housing Authority, (DHA), Karachi, were severely damaged, rendered out of order and some streets have been without street lights since then and continue to remain so, dark in the night.
As a resident of DHA, on July 23, 2010, I filed a complaint with the Complaint Centre of Cantonment Board Clifton to fix a damaged and inoperative streetlight, which was duly recorded on its prescribed Complaint Registration Form. First, I was told that the streetlight would be repaired and restored, within the next 24 hours. When nobody from CBC showed up for the next several days, I visited CBC again to be only told to contact DHA's Project Development since it was not the responsibility of CBC to repair and maintain street light in Phase-VIII.
The DHA Project Directorate was then duly contacted and personally visited, who gave me a copy of their letter under reference No: DHA/09/ADR dated 26 July, 2010 which stated that the responsibility to maintain DHA Phase-VIII streetlights was transferred to CBC, along with staff, staff vehicle, maintenance vehicle and material. I was told to take the copy of the letter and show it to CBC authorities for compliance.
When the copy of the above letter was presented to CBC, I was told that the matter was under discussion and that upon resolution of the issue, the streetlight would be fixed soon. The matter was pursued for months but to no avail. During my several visits to the DHA Development Directorate, I could never find the Project Director in his office who was perpetually out on some important meetings.
During one of such visits to the DHA Development Directorate, I called on a deputy director with the lamppost sob story. The pompous gentleman promised that, Insha Allah the streetlight would be fixed within the next 24 hours. To his promise I commented that one did not need divine assistance to fix a lamppost which only requires the services of a technician to do the job. This slighted the gentleman who took exception to my daft comment. To prove his point, he then called one of the junior employees and asked him to arrange and depute immediately a technician to repair the damaged lamppost, pronto! Nothing has happened thus far and the street is still without the light.
In the meanwhile, I along with 9 other residents/complainants, received a copy of a letter from CBC's Chief Engineer, on the subject, "Streetlight complaints regarding Phase-VIII, DHA", dated January 03, 2011, reference: CBC/STLT/02/2010/26, stating that "the streetlight complaints received have been forwarded to DHA Development Directorate for further necessary action (more appropriately, inaction). Some two months ago I visited CBC and met with the chief engineer and explained the plight of the DHA residents. Like the DHA Development Directorate's deputy director, he too promised and said: "the streetlight would be fixed within the next 24 hours". These streets of DHA Phase-VIII till to-date are in the same pathetic condition, inoperative, rotting and deteriorating.
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