President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Abdullah Zaki expressed sheer disappointment over poor performance of Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) and K-Electric (KE) in rapidly and efficiently dealing with various issues emerging after Friday night's torrential rainfalls across the city.
In a statement issued, President KCCI said although the heavy rainfalls lasted for hardly half-an-hour yet the public continues to face severe hardships due to poor sewerage and sanitation system which requires immediate attention. Secondly, the prolong power outages and K-Electric's failure to timely resolve electricity related issues in many areas turned the first pleasant rainfall into nightmare for Karachiites, he added.
"It rained for just 30 minutes or so but this was enough to inundate Karachi's roads and lanes whereas the sanitation staff of the city was nowhere to be found," Abdullah Zaki noted and added that rise in number of slums and squatter settlements built on the banks of the drains have made matters worse.
To effectively deal with the situation, President KCCI suggested that active and well-equipped 'Rain Emergency Centers' in all five districts of the city should immediately be established where workers of KMC, KWSB and K-Electric must remain deployed round-the-clock to assist the public and quickly resolve rain related issues. Furthermore, these Rain Emergency Centers should be well-equipped with necessary machinery particularly water pumping machines in order to quickly clear standstill rainwater from the streets so that smooth flow of traffic could be ensured during the ongoing Monsoon season, he said, adding that KMC, K-Electric, KWSB and other civic departments must make co-ordinated efforts to minimise the grievances likely to be faced by the public during this year's Monsoon season.
He feared that any negligence in setting up active Rain Emergency Centers in all five districts of the city could lead to a disastrous situation as witnessed during the torrential rainfalls of Monsoon season in September 2011 and August 2013. "Unfortunately, we have not learned any lesson from our past experiences as the existing infrastructure of the city remains incapable of dealing with such natural calamities due to failure to invest on improving the dilapidated infrastructure," he added.
Keeping in view Karachi city's massive contribution of around 70 percent to the national exchequer, President KCCI hoped that the government accordingly gives high priority to the financial and commercial hub of Pakistan in order to ensure that the economic and industrial wheels of this city keep spinning without any interruption.-PR