IN KARACHI “water provision is “more lucrative than drugs”…competition for control of the city’s water includes water mafias and formal institutions…it is a source of intense economic and political competition. and may deepen fault lines in this highly fractured, multi-ethnic, populous city.” ( Read more: Water Mafia and Governance in Karachi)
These water tankers’ operators probably read the report too seriously that Malaysia has certified rain as halal — even if it has collected in a pond, or in a nallah or in the wetland as rainwater, it’s good to go! Monetize rain institutionally bottom up and top down! BUT water problem and insecurity in the city is a mixed bag of symptoms (including the sale of Guthka) emanating due to misgovernance / no governance, intense local politics, and criminality.
A young kid ‘Good Samaritan’ helps motorists negotiate a pot hole on the road –absent safety vest, cones and barricades (don’t blame him though). Traffic control, safety, roads management, repair and maintenance are woefully inadequate — these are an added plus symptoms though, piggybacking safe drinking water crisis & insecurity in the mega city — Pakistan’s financial hub and economic power house.
Life must go on, and indeed goes on amid heavy downpours for this young delivery boy and for so many others:
Even if one has to wait and wait at the manned toll plaza absent automatic EX pass sort of solution. They say the manual system provides employment to many.
This bike-riding couple probably doesn’t realize that when there is ‘water, water everywhere’ one shouldn’t leave home (it’s a sense & sensibility thing, unless he’s employed at the toll plaza to man one of the cubicles!
Same goes for this gentleman. It’s almost a picture perfect book or album cover on the country’s economy albeit economic power house.
This gentleman found a solution. Kids (including me) love it! Jokes aside, the city problems need a ‘spiderman’, an astute observer said to me back in 2017. Since then, I’ve been counting days, weeks, months and years :((
Irshad Salim, Aug. 17, 2022
