Karachi should be handed over to Pakistan Army for 5 years: Chairman BMG Siraj Kassam Teli

Karachi should be handed over to Pakistan Army for 5 years: Chairman BMG Siraj Kassam Teli

KARACHI (B Recorder 05 Aug 2020): Chairman of Businessmen Group (BMG), Siraj Kassam Teli, who is also a former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), has said that in order to maintain cleanliness in Karachi, this city should immediately be handed over to the Pakistan Army for a period of five years so that all the infrastructure issues could be resolved in a transparent manner under the army's supervision. While warmly welcoming the federal government's resolve to clean Karachi, he stated that the business and industrial community highly appreciated Prime Minister Imran Khan's move to engage the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) in the clean up operation in Karachi which would certainly yield positive results and provide some relief to the perturbed citizens of this city who faced immense hardships whenever the city received torrential rainfalls.

"It has just been two days since commencement of the cleanup drive, and the difference is visible thanks to the hard work of the NDMA and the FWO which have been working aggressively, and we hope maximum possible cleanup is done before the next rainfall," he said.

He was of the opinion that the cleanliness drive should not be remained confined to just clearing of the chocked drains only but every single nook and corner of Karachi had to be completely cleaned of garbage on a war-footing, and it must be an ongoing process until the entire city was completely cleaned.

"Effective strategies and mechanism have to be defined which must ensure that the city's cleanliness is maintained at any cost in future which can only be done under the army's supervision," he added.

"We are really delighted to see that after a lapse of 20 to 25 years, the current federal government has decisively stepped in to do something good for Karachi as all the other political parties, which have remained in power during the last twenty years in all the tiers of the government, have ignored this city which is the basic reason for the disaster being suffered by the Karachiites," Siraj Teli said, adding that all the political parties that remained in power since the 90s deserve no sympathies at all as they had done a lot of injustices to Karachi by completely ignoring all the infrastructure-related issues.

Siraj Teli further pointed out that after clearing the city of garbage, the NDMA and the FWO should be given the task to rebuild the infrastructure, particularly the dilapidated road network of Karachi. "The roads and sewerage lines in all seven industrial zones of Karachi are in a pathetic condition, creating a lot of hardships for businessmen and industrialists who have to suffer severe losses because of the damages to their goods in transit and sometimes due to delays caused by traffic jams due to broken roads," he added.

He said that as Karachiites and the business and industrial community had totally lost their trust in the capabilities of the local administration which had failed miserably to minimize the hardships being faced by the Karachiites, hence, it had become inevitable to hand over Karachi to the army at the earliest, or the devastating situation in Karachi would have a disastrous impact on the country's economy.

The chairman of BMG said, "Keeping in view the dedication and sincerity being exhibited by Prime Minister Imran Khan, we hope that he would pay attention to the plights of Karachiites and give the go ahead to handing over this city to the army for the next five years which is the only way to practically pull this city out of the infrastructure crises and other issues."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020