The civic agencies are needed to be reformed to overcome municipal issues - sewerage, water and garbage, said Urban Planner Arif Hasan on Thursday. Arif Hasan spoke to the members of the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on Fatehyab's City: Causes and Repercussions of Turmoil in Karachi.
He urged for the need to establishing Central Planning Agency to cater for the infrastructural development needs of the city. "KMC cannot control the city," he said, adding that District Municipal Corporations (DMC) needs to be given more functional role to deliver.
He also called for urban land reforms in the province besides ban on non utilization of plots should be imposed.
Citing the figures density of different areas of the city 71 percent of Karachiites live in less than 100 square yard area while only 1.5 percent live in more than 240 square yard area.
He said government should limit the land acquisition up to 500 square yards per person. He said city needs more than 120,000 housing units per year to cater citizens needs.
He said density of new development housing schemes must be restricted to 600 persons per hector. He said ecological assets - mangroves and water outflow passages need to be protected to avert natural calamities, adding that sea land reclamation is the major ecological challenge.
"Water crises in the city are manmade," he said.
"Karachi is the rich city where people live," he said, adding that city employs some 71.6 percent of total labor force of the province.
Sharing the memories of late Fatehyab Ali Khan, a social worker and politician, he said Fatehyab got elected as president of Karachi University's student union in 1964. Throughout his entire life, Fatehyab worked for wellbeing of the people of Karachi.
During his political career, he was imprisoned for one year as student leader.
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