‘Green Line project to only benefit 1.2pc of city population’

Karachi

“Only around 1.2 percent of the population of the city will benefit from the Green Line project, the transport problem will nevertheless continue to remain a pertinent problem of the city,” observed renowned architect and urban planner Arif Hasan at a seminar held on Wednesday.

Titled ‘Trends of Urbanisation in Karachi’, the seminar was organised by the Applied Economics Research Centre (AERC) at the University of Karachi (KU).

The architect observed that Karachi was a highly diverse city since a large number of immigrants from other provinces lived there.

“As many as 13 million citizens, who make up 62 percent of the city’s population, live in informal settlements while most prefer to live on rent because it is much cheaper,’’ Hasan claimed.

He further mentioned that only around 7.5 million citizens lived in planned settlements.

Urban land reforms were pivotal for managing the rapidly growing population of the metropolis, he said, adding, that political interests had so far proved to be the main hurdle in getting a census done in this country.

He mentioned that due to high rise buildings and uneasy environment, women avoided sitting outside their home in the streets, as was once a routine.

Speaking of a lack of public toilets, Hasan recalled the House Building Finance Company Limited’s toilet loan scheme which he claimed had proved to be a success.

The architect stated that unfortunately the city was never developed on the lines of an urban plan and the number of high rises kept on increasing. He further claimed that DHA’s phase-VIII was planned 21 years ago but two third of its area was yet to be developed.  More than 2,800 villages were occupied during the last 25 years which highly affected the rural economy, he further observed.

Further elaborating over the city’s transport system, he observed that in 2015, 1.7 million motorbikes were registered in Karachi.  “776 vehicles are registered in Karachi in a day of which 450 are motorbikes.”