very year Karachi drowns in rainwater. Every monsoon the relevant authorities blame the rains for the loss of lives, widespread damage and destruction. Debate over concrete action and permanent solutions is lost amid political rhetoric and theatrics.

Photo ops for politicians, particularly those holding responsible offices, have remained a regular feature during floods in the city. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) mayor Mustafa Kamal, and the then governor Dr Ishratul Ebad would make rounds of Karachi to monitor efforts to drain an already drowned city; taking time out during the tour to stop at some roadside tea stalls to enjoy pakoray and tea as television cameras swarmed around them to capture and transmit the visuals across the country.

Later, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) leaders would follow suit. Who can forget President Arif Alvi pictured in a boat at Sharae Faisal during one such flooding, apparently monitoring rescue efforts?

This year, it was the PPP’s Karachi administrator Murtaza Wahab. He was out and about during the rains. A relatively young and emerging face of the party in Karachi, Wahab was on the streets until late in the night, even on the eve of Eid to monitor drainage efforts and works. While it may be difficult to assess public support on the ground, Wahab has definitely garnered much support on Twitter for his efforts to keep the city running.

But is this what Karachi needs? A superhero-administrator trying to reach every nook and cranny of the city in his massive vehicle, instructing municipal staff to deploy dewatering pumps so that rainwater from the city’s main arteries can be directed into the drains. Why can’t rainwater drain on its own like it does in other cities?

Despite the mobilisation of the entire Sindh cabinet and their teams of advisors, along with bureaucracy, to oversee and monitor the drainage, it took well over a day to give major thoroughfares of the city a semblance of normalcy. Link roads, neighbourhood streets and low-lying areas, even in some posh localities, remained inundated despite the apparent efforts. This raises some questions: why are thousands of portable dewatering pumps draining the water? Where is the city’s drainage system? Why has there been no planning by the city administration in this regard despite allocation of budget for the same? What is the point of the drains that require allocation of huge resources such as pumps and buckets apart from human resource to drain rainwater from neighbourhoods and major arteries of the city?

Drains under all land-owning agencies have been encroached upon over the years. Due to poor garbage and sewerage management, all the garbage and dirt of the city also goes into these rain drains, clogging them when it pours.

Masood Alam has spent his entire life dealing with the city’s municipal system at the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). He tells The News on Sunday that the city has 32 major rain drains that fall under (KMC), which is headed by PPP’s Murtaza Wahab. There are also 540 smaller drains, which fall under the seven district municipal corporations (DMCs). Apart from these there are several nullahs that fall under cantonment boards.

There are six cantonment boards in the city: Cantonment Board Faisal lies in the East district; Cantonment Board Karachi in South and East districts; Cantonment Board Clifton in South district; Cantonment Board Manora in Kemari district; Cantonment Board Korangi in Korangi district; and the Cantonment Board Malir in Malir district.

Station Headquarters for Corps 5 and the Karachi Commander Naval Headquarters have their separate jurisdictions in the city.

The Defence Housing Authority (DHA) operates in Cantonment Board Clifton only. The DHA is a developer and the CBC is a municipal agency. The job of the DHA is to seek allotment of the land from the government, make a master plan, lay utility lines and construct roads. Once this job is done, the CBC takes over the area and maintains it.

Apart from these, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the Karachi Port Trust (KPT), the Pakistan Railways and the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) have their jurisdictions over certain areas and own a few nullahs.

There is therefore no single umbrella under which to regulate all these agencies.

Drains under all these agencies have been encroached upon over the years. Due to poor garbage and sewerage management, all the garbage and dirt of the city also goes into these rain drains, clogging them when it pours.
But has anything been done about it?

The PTI-led federal government had announced a Rs 1,100 billion Karachi package after the 2020 rains. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and the National Logistics Cell (NLC) were engaged to clean the three major drains of the city: the Gujjar Nullah, the Orangi Nullah and the Mehmoodabad Nullah.

Millions of rupees are spent each year for the cleaning either by the Sindh or the federal government. But to no avail.

The NDMA removed 15,000 houses from these nullahs, blaming the “encroachments” for flooding. As a result, numerous families became homeless. Did the city or the areas surrounding these nullahs flood again this year? They did. Alam says that under the World Bank-funded Karachi Neighbourhood Improvement Project (KNIP), millions of rupees were spent to lay sewerage and storm drain infrastructure in Saddar, Zainab Market and adjoining areas. Did this help prevent flooding of these areas? No.

The way the city is growing into an even more unplanned metropolis, with little to no regard for drainage, Alam says the situation is bound to get worse in the years to come. “What the city administration needs to do is digital mapping of the areas where rainwater does not drain in the city and then come up with a master plan for up to 2050.”

Atiq Mir, president of the All Karachi Traders’ Association, says he has no expectations from the current administration of the city. He says Karachi’s traders have incurred losses worth billions of rupees during the recent downpour. “This is after the federal government promised a Rs 1,100 billion package for Karachi,” he says, adding that if the city governance continues the way it is being done, it will lose all investment.

The Centre, he says, needs to think what needs to be done for Karachi, once and for all.

The writer is a reporter at    The News in Karachi