City govt to unveil draft master plan in a fortnight
KARACHI, April 25: The city government will make public the draft Master Plan-2020 of Karachi within a fortnight after which it will be presented to the City Council for a formal approval.
City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal told Dawn on Wednesday that “in 10 to 15 days, we will present the executive summary of the draft master plan to the public through the city government’s website to seek feedback. There will certainly be a timeframe and afterwards, the document will be presented to the City Council for a formal approval.”
The draft master plan will probably be tabled in the City Council during the last week of May. The city government has been in the process of preparing the master plan for about a year during which it faced many problems in sharing the land records maintained by other land controlling agencies in the metropolis.
The proposed master plan advocates a single body responsible for the provision of uniform municipal services across the metropolis irrespective of its jurisdiction.
Officials said all stakeholders, including cantonment boards and the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), had shared their respective land record with the city government. The stakeholders also gave several suggestions and raised objections during a series of meetings with the city government authorities and the consulting firm hired for preparing the master plan.
The officials observed that the implementation of the Master Plan-2020 would be the most difficult phase of the process which would begin with the plan’s approval by the City Council.
“If it is implemented in its present form, then the city government will take responsibility of providing municipal services across the city and charge municipal tax from residents of DHA, cantonment boards and other land controlling authorities,” said an official.
On his part, Mr Kamal said that separate entity of each land controlling agencies in Karachi was duly recognised in the master plan which also contained the suggestions and proposals presented by each of them. The document covered the entire city and not just the CDGK-controlled lands.
According to the draft master plan, 30.9 per cent land is controlled by the CDGK; 17.7 by the Sindh government; 5.6 per cent by the LDA; 3.9 per cent by the MDA; 5 per cent by the DHA; 2.8 per cent by KPT; 2.01 per cent by cantonment boards; 1.5 per cent by PQA; 1.8 per cent by cooperative housing societies; 0.6 per cent by the SITE; 0.5 per cent by the federal government; and 0.4 per cent by Pakistan Railways. Private land in the city stands at 3.9 per cent whereas some 2.7 per cent of the city’s land has recently been allotted for industrial, educational and other purposes. The draft master plan shows 20.7 per cent land in city falling in the jurisdiction of the Kirthar National Park.
Digital Map: City Nazim Mustafa Kamal has directed the officials concerned to prepare a digital map showing all under-construction roads with each and every detail of the underground utility lines.
He issued the directive during his visit to the sites of various road projects in the city in the wee hours of Wednesday.
He called for setting up of a library in the Works and Services Department as a source of information about roads and the utility lines, and said the information would be made available to all utility service providers so that any damage in the course of digging and road-building could be avoided.
During his visit to Sohrab Goth Flyover site, he was informed that the second track of the flyover would be completed in two months and the underpass there would also be opened soon.
While visiting a project on Shahrah-i-Pakistan, he directed the contractor and officials concerned not to start digging of the Karimabad-Sohrab Goth track before completing construction of the service road in order to ensure flow of diverted traffic on the service road during the reconstruction of the track.
Mr Kamal directed staff and officials at the site of the under-construction I.I. Chundrigar Road to ensure provision of utility service lines and ducts with little distance between each two ducts along footpath to facilitate works by utility service organisations in future and avoid unnecessary road cutting.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/26/2007
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