The Met Office has forecast another monsoon spell which will start today and continue over the next few days. Business Recorder in its yesterday issue has made a very valid question with regard to our ability and capacity to deal with rains. According to it, "After the scorching heat of May and June, people, especially in the big urban centres like Karachi, Hyderabad and Lahore, wait for the monsoon rains to come and provide some relief only to start praying for the rains to go away when they become a bane. Roads get inundated, sewers overflow and electric supplies remain disrupted for several hours, bringing life to a standstill. Worse still, many lives are lost in house collapses and electrocution from fallen live wires."
I need to highlight the fact that Karachi, a city of teeming millions, has no owner. Doesn't Karachi need someone to take ownership of its issues pre- and post-monsoon? Elected political leaders cannot pass the buck for crisis decisions to any alternate source of authority.