We have entered 2011 and still face basic sanitation and cleanliness problems. With the municipal corporation left alone to do the tasks of collecting and dumping waste, the problem seems to be going nowhere. Waste and garbage dumps are an ordinary sight. All those years I passed by them and never imagined how this  mess can be taken care of. For all those years, the hassle of carrying empty bottles and wrappers, in a bid to find a dustbin, was quite a painful task. This thought led me to sit down and study the supply chain of waste management. The waste management chain The poor garbage collectors handpick bottles and cardboard from waste every morning to sell it to the kabaris. The kabaris sort it and sell it to middle men until all of it ends up with local companies who use the waste as raw material in the production of bottles, cardboard, plastic, tissue papers, newsprint paper and even white A4 paper. The poor children, who picked out the garbage in the first place and carried it around all day, are at the bottom end of chain and receive the lowest fraction of the money made in the process – all at the cost of their education! It might be a very difficult thing to do, but we could try to break this chain and bring in organisations in between, who take the garbage from kids, for an amount of money that can be used to educate the children. All I ask is for are small steps which can bring change. Cash for trash: A Rs40,000 experiment At NUST, we did an experiment of hacking parts of this waste management chain. All we did was install separate bins for paper and other garbage. We divided the whole waste management system into two parts. Paper went to storage while the rest went into trash. Within a semester, four tons of paper was collected with a profit of Rs40,000 and a reduction in incineration by 90 per cent. What if every school and university started doing this? Let’s up it one level. What if mohallas and communities hire children to sort their entire waste, take it along, and sell it. The money paid for the collection can go for arranging for their school. It’s not hard to recycle Let’s take out a calculator. An educated estimate suggests that only 21 per cent of the total waste in Lahore goes towards recycling and it generates an amount of $4.5 million. Further it can be predicted that if recycling is seriously adopted, $8.8 million can be generated from one city alone. A recent report by Dawn News about recycling by Tetrapak (packages) portrayed a very good example of dealing with this situation. Keeping economic benefits of this process aside, taking out the trash on Sundays isn’t really that difficult and the youth in Pakistan have done it through Facebook. Organisations like Zimmedar Shehri have shown us that it is possible. In the age of technology and Facebook (two separate ages), it’s not that hard to link organisations and form synergies to take small steps to curb such a nuisance. Organisations like EPS, Pakistan Sustainable Network, Pakistan Environment Club, Subh-e-nau, Scope are a good start for such synergies. So for the next summer vacation, intern at such places for a change, to make a change!

A few days ago, a newborn baby girl was dumped in a garbage heap by an unidentified woman in Faisalabad. No one realised there was a baby until the heap was set on fire and the cries of the baby girl alerted the garbage collector. She was taken to hospital with more than three-fourth of her body burnt. Unfortunately, the doctors could not save her. Female infanticide is still very common in Pakistan. It is sad to see that even in the 21st century the birth of a female is considered a stigma. When my eldest sister Tena* was born (we are three sisters and one brother), my mom was criticised, mocked and ridiculed for giving birth to a girl. My dad started mocking my mom and soon enough, relatives, friends and neighbours followed suit. Life for my mom started to become very difficult. When my mom was expecting for the second time, there were hopes of restoring her lost respect if she gave birth to a boy. But Alas! A girl it was, once again. At this point, in sheer disappointment, my dad threatened to leave my mother if she gave birth to another girl. My paternal grandmother and aunts had suddenly assumed the roles of my mother’s worst enemies. My mother, however, suffered silently. She just prayed to Allah to protect her children and give sense to those people. Giving birth to me, however, was the toughest phase of my mother’s life. By this time, she was sure if it was not a boy, my dad would leave her. He desperately wanted the child coming to be a boy, but to his utter disappointment, I was born. My birth was the beginning of a dark life of taunts, threats and despair for my mother and sisters. The gloom and sadness was evident on the faces of all my family members. My dad was furious and blamed my mother entirely for my birth; as if giving birth to a girl was a choice made by my mom. My paternal grandmother and aunts pushed for my dad to divorce my mom. All my relatives wanted my dad to leave my mother so he could bestow her with a ‘punishment’ in proportion with the ‘sin’ she had committed of giving birth to yet another girl. He divorced my mother, married another woman and settled in Saudi Arabia. He did not even maintain contact with us or our mother, nor did he ever offer to pay for our upbringing. Why would he though? He hated us and didn’t want us to begin with. So what if we were his daughters? We, his very own daughters, were a stain on his reputation. We had stripped him of his ‘ghairat’ (honour) and let him down, all because we were born girls. We would obviously grow up to be good-for-nothing burdens on his shoulders, mere liabilities or perhaps just bad luck. So, according to him, it was best that he left us and cut all ties. Pretending we don’t exist is probably still better than the poor baby who was left in a garbage can. Luckily, after a couple of years of being the single parent of three daughters, my mother finally found an educated, reasonable man who was willing to marry my mom and accept her three ‘sins’. Life didn’t seem so bad suddenly - it was as if we were given a chance to make a fresh start. Of course, the occasional taunts referring to me and my sisters still continued, but when that did happen, my step dad tolerated it but stood strong by my mom’s side. Together, my mom and him had a baby boy and my mother’s image was given a feeble boost. The ridiculing and taunts, however, continued nonetheless. My step dad was called ‘character-less’ for helping my mother bring up her three ‘sins’. Eventually, he buckled under pressure and left my mom, and once again my mother was left to face the cruel, ruthless remarks of our society all on her own. She has lived without the support of a husband or man since then. Two of my sisters are married and I, too, will be married soon. My step brother is a graduate now. But what pains and bewilders me is the mindset that some men (and indeed some women) have. No matter how educated they may be, they still think women are the bane of their existence. How can they be so cruel to their own blood, their own daughters? How can they be so pathetic? Have they forgotten that their mothers are also someone’s daughters?  We boast about living in a ‘progressive’ society but cannot learn to accept women in this world? Do they not realise that without women they would not even be alive? And yet they bury their daughters alive? Why is the ‘ghairat’ of a male placed on the shoulders of women? How can men do this to their wives and daughters, and get away with it, with the support of society? Why can women not be allowed to live? Why did that baby girl have to die? Why have no answers ever been given? *Names have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals.

Ghaffar was at a restaurant with friends. The food had been devoured, and everyone was awaiting their cars. Somehow he casually looked at his feet and saw a torn piece of paper floating in a puddle some feet away. He looked around, and ensuring no one was looking, he pocketed it carefully. Once he was back home, he began to read it. It was written with a black fountain pen, the writing was cursive, and from far it looked like one large sentence. It read:

“Often we constantly sketch dreams in the loopholes of our world. We fit them in, often enlarging the holes to wedge our dreams perfectly, neatly, precisely. But we forget that there are too many spaces in this reality, too many dreams to be sown, infinite abysses that stare inside you. So, soon we give up, because we are tired of dreaming and seeing them manifest only in the silence of the nights. What remains at dusk is an individual who picks up the patched and bruised world to find some temporary cure before he could sleep again, dream again. But, it’s only when Death knocks that we drop the world from our shoulders and attempt to disappear inside one of the edges of our dreams”.

Shaking hands turned the paper, and on the other side, it continued:

“Would you not want to talk in eternal words? Would you not want to discuss ideas never discussed before, never seen in light before? There are these ideas, unbelievable ideas. Unimaginable. Ideas that once enter inside you, race to every part of your body, refreshing it from its decades of buried past, burning petty concerns of the future, and rejuvenating each cell inside the body, so that each single individual part of you transforms and transforms until transformation is the only cycle it can cycle upon. And the pens you use to pen these ideas would dry up writing them, ideas which are so fresh, and larger than this entire universe, because what is the universe but an established idea inside us? And the pen would break trying to capture the depth of the abyss that the ideas contain, and the solidity that is within it. The pen will stop when it pauses to reflect on the bizarre thoughts that it never considered, never could consider. And the mind will burst, like a balloon with too much air, it will burst because of too many ideas, too many potential to actions, too many chances of reform, and too many staircases ahead of humanity. But when the mind will explode, the individual will cease to be, but the ideas will scatter into different bodies, and so the individuals with small bits of ideas will strive to find others who can wedge inside the missing part of their idea. But when, the whole picture will complete inside a single mind, it will burst again, and the cycle will continue”.

There was no name, no signature on any side of the paper. He was fascinated how someone could leave their idea behind, but not their signpost. Ghaffar had always been taught how necessary it was to have a name, to have an unchanging signature, because somehow our identity depended upon them. But this single piece of paper, with these incredible thoughts, put to flames all his concerns about identity. He felt as if the paper was actually a key in disguise that had opened a room inside his mind, and once he stepped inside, he saw endless staircases he had never imagined before, and his thoughts began to grow, expand and crumble. One thought flew in asserting that there was no such thing as identity, even when people aid someone, they ensure that the beneficiary knows who their saviour is. Saviours without names are so rare. Another thought joined the party and claimed the goal should not be to leave behind your footprints, or your posters, but to leave behind ideas, because the footprints are dead, static entities; it’s only the ideas which throb, and these need to be transferred, because ideas have an infinite life; the bodies decay and slowly rot, but not ideas, their freshness is and will be unmatched. Thoughts kept on flying in, slowly transforming the base of ideas; signatures are just another way to feel secure about one’s insecurities, just an illusion to keep thoughts of one’s disintegration at bay. Suddenly, a considerably bigger thought tries to enter his mind, and bangs against the sides of his head; the thoughts seem to shout that only geniuses should be allowed to scream. The rest scream from fear, anger, frustration, and desire but the genius screams together with each of these. He fears for the consequences of the people that surround him, his anger retorts at the absence of elastic minds, his frustration shouts because he feels like a plant from a different planet who is unable to breathe in the air, unable to interact with static ideas, and his desire mixes each of them inside itself before propelling itself into a scream for movement, a scream for progression, a scream for ripping apart the pretentious stationary lives that have been constructed to adapt to the existing structures. Ghaffar’s whole existence begins to shake, first with a taste of fear, but eventually the fear begins to change into joy, and before long, he wonders at his resistance to such staggering thoughts. “Ghaffar, one day, you will have a great idea. And if you listen to it, keep your heart close to its whisper, you will hear more…”

“Whose whisper?”

“The whisper of the idea.”

“Why do you bring to life every thought, father?”

“Is it not interesting to you?”

“Yes… but no one else talks this way, it is so hard to understand sometimes.”

“I am sorry; I will make it easy today. Let us go for a walk.”

“But it is raining!”

“Let’s get wet. Just don’t tell your mother. Promise?” A sense of urgency mixed intensely with excitement arises in Ghaffar’s heart. A child’s first brush with secrets. As the father and son quietly leave the house, closing the door in inches and inches, they finally turn towards the rain and begin to walk outside their house. Just as their bodies enter the rain’s domain, a small smile climbs up on the father’s face, while Ghaffar begins to laugh, zealous about the strangeness of their adventure. They walk in silence, Ghaffar looking here and there and there and here, surprised by the sudden explosion of colour in the leaves, in trees, feathers, walls, on roads, as if the thirst of every living and non-living thing was fulfilled. The rain seemed to have dropped right into their open swaying throats, and those with bowed heads, the rain had landed softly on them and then quietly made its way to their shy mouths. “You see that uncle,” he points at their neighbour, a retired army officer in his late 70s, attempting to walk upright on his covered terrace.

“Yes.”

“He has a great heart. But his time in the army sowed so many fears and complexes on the fertile soil of his heart that now he is suspicious of even his own self.”

“Father, you are doing it again.”

He laughs softly, and the roaring rain is not able to drown the soft pitch. “Okay. Let us break the thought up into small pieces and then we will piece them together.”

“Okay.”

“So, this heart that you have, it is really soft from the core, but the edges are really strong. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“So, this soft centre is easily changed by what you hear, what you see, and what you don’t hear what you don’t see.”

“Okay, I think I am following.”

“But behind the softness of the heart, there are some basic conditions.”

“What conditions?”

“These conditions are more or less in every heart of the world.”

“But father what are these conditions?”

“These are the feelings and tendencies that everyone has, wherever he is, whichever class he is from, and whatever he believes.”

“But I thought every man is different.”

“He is.”

“But he is also the same?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ghaffar, opposites of anything are always side by side. If one of them were to disappear, then there would be no reason for the other to exist.”

“You’re confusing me further. So that means happiness is always side by side with sadness?”

“Yes.”

“But if they were always so close, then would it not be easy to jump from one to the other? Why then would people ever be sad?”

The father smiles widely, and the width permeates quietly into sadness, delighted by the quiet explosion of his son’s imagination. “Yes, Ghaffar.”

“So, why are people not always happy then?”

“Because too much happiness becomes a bore.”

“What, father? I don’t understand. How can happiness ever become boring? Is it not the goal of all of us?”

The father’s tongue feels like a car stuck on an winding empty road, knowing that if he went ahead, the child might grow up forever surrounded by melancholy, suspicious of happiness, and if he were to reverse, then he would be taking him away from reality. “I think we have had enough serious questions for one day. Look at the birds there,” pointing to Ghaffar’s right, “see how they sit drowsily, close to each other, enjoying the warmth more because of the cold breeze...” Before the sentence finished, Ghaffar wraps his arms around him, and the father lets speech rest on the wet and cold sidewalk, and walks along with Ghaffar, finally feeling the warmth of the birds. When Ghaffar wakes up, his hands are in the position of an embrace, and somehow he continues to lie in that position, substituting the emptiness with a dream. Suddenly, he hears a knock on the door and Zameer’s voice trails inside indicating a doctor’s appointment. On the way back from the hospital, the car stops again at the same signal. Without knowing why, Ghaffar asks Zameer to head home and gets out of the car, slowly walking away from the signal. Once the signal opens and Zameer races away, Ghaffar increases his speed, and catches up with her. Maida, who by now had slowed down after having seen him coming, gives him a mischievous smile. “Are you chasing a transsexual?” says Maida and laughs heartily. Ghaffar tries to muster a smile,

“No, I’m not chasing you. Is there some place we can sit?”

“Yes, the same garbage cans, but they are some miles from here.”

“No problem, we’ll walk.”

“Are you sure? There is still light, people are not used to seeing a male taking a walk with a transsexual.” Ghaffar looks at the passing cars, and sees that almost every eye is glued to both of them. Some eyes are just curious, others are dripping with astonishment, judgment, ridicule, and disgust.

“I don’t care, let’s just walk.”

“Okay.” Once they reach the cans, Ghaffar explodes,

“What the hell is wrong with people? Why can’t they let others be? You are not some animal at a f**king zoo that people can look at you.”

“I am an animal at a zoo; people pay us just because of that.” Ghaffar looks hard at her. How easily she can brush aside the society’s treatment, like squatting a housefly. “But what I’m more curious about is why you would come to meet me?”

“I’m not attracted to you; I just want to know how you live and how you think.”

“So what am I, your lab experiment?” Ghaffar laughs,

“Aren’t we all lab experiments? Some force from outside influences us and we react and try to influence the force. And so, from our reactions, we make rules about how the other animals along us should live and survive, and we keep on running here and there, confined in a lab, mistaking it to be our whole existence...”

“Where do you know all of this from?”

“From my father, I think.”

“What does he do?”

“I don’t know; he is no longer with us.”

Maida looks at him, and despite her manly voice, her look of concern is more soothing than a thousand condolences uttered by his relatives, “You see him in your dreams?” Ghaffar looks at her incredulously,

“How can you possibly know that?”

“I know that because I dream of my parents too. And in them I am again a part of the household, and I’m still the way I am, but their love is not polluted by the society. Dreams are what help me survive. They are the real reality, this reality,” she extends her hands outwards, “this is actually a nightmare.” Ghaffar casts his eyes downwards, and a smile appears in his eyes. Human beings will always remain out of reach of his understanding. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you think you have what it takes to write a series, email blog@tribune.com.pk with your ideas!

According to the World Food Programme, 

“When a person is not getting enough food or not getting the right sort of food, malnutrition is just around the corner”

But while trying to define the ‘right food’, one is instantly made aware of all the ‘wrong’ food that is being consumed. It’s shocking how excessively such low quality and injurious food is multiplying in the local markets and school canteens – devoid of any supervision by the concerned food authorities. The effects of junk food are evident amongst our children who face various forms of ailments. Recently, my nephew was diagnosed with obesity and a skin disease that generated white marks on his body. Upon consultation, a doctor spoke in detail with him about his food habits, drawing the conclusion that his health issues were closely linked to his excessive intake of packed chips and carbonated drinks. What people do not realise is that these food items are packed with carbohydrates, fat, aerated water, low quality sugar, salt, hazardous artificial flavours, artificial colouring and deep-fried stale items. Junk food being made readily available in the streets, parks and schools prevents children from maintaining a balanced diet. This regulation of poor nutrition makes them susceptible to a wide range of ailments including respiratory infections, diarrhoeal episodes, abdominal pain, skin diseases along with obesity related problems. This is why paediatricians strictly warn youngsters on consuming junk food as it severely reduces their immunity against diseases. This poor quality junk food, that is widely advertised are produced by huge national and multinational companies, is marketed in the poor neighbourhoods and rural areas. This locally produced junk that has stormed the local markets was produced in poor hygienic conditions with unhealthy ingredients, weird packing and bizarre titles. It is even more dangerous and has more detrimental and injurious effects on children’s health. Go to any school canteen or small shops in front of schools and parks and you will find them full of substandard junk food and fizzy drinks. School children in particular have a high junk food intake as they splurge the school canteen in bouts of hunger instead of having packed lunch from home. Since canteens look at revenue rather than health, they stock up processed food, rather than providing students with food made with fresh ingredients. Consuming this much processed food is not only expensive for the consumer, but also damaging to health. Making such food this accessible puts a dent on eating habits; children become addicted to sugar and such nutritionally bereft food. Unfortunately, canteens are available in all kinds of schools; even if some government schools do not have a fully functional canteen, we see tuck shops that have established themselves outside, especially to target children as their consumers. Junk food shops are prone to selling cheap rather than nutritionally sound food and drinks, thus enabling children and their access to such products. What we fail to understand is that our body is made up of nutrients and require certain kinds of vitamins and minerals to keep itself healthy and strong to fight off any foreign bodies and regenerate. Our bones and teeth need calcium and muscles need protein. The body needs vitamin A, C to strengthen the immune system. It’s made up of 50-75 per cent water and it constantly needs to be hydrated so it can flush out all the toxins from our body. Consuming high sugar foods and processed food not only deprives us of these necessities, it also makes our insulin levels spike, causing us to instantly turn all the sugar we have consumed into fat. The question remains, how do we expect our body to be healthy if we feed it everything except what it actually needs? Another consequence of this junk food production is the wrappers proving to be hazardous to the environment. One can see streets, parks and markets shamelessly piling up with garbage in empty plots and even sanitation pipes. There seems to be no care or awareness on how to prevent this garbage being thrown on the streets and no corporate social responsibility, either by the small shopkeepers or huge national or multinationals that produce and sell these products. Even at famous picnic spots from Islamabad to Murree and from Swat to Tharparkar, you can see heaps of empty wrappers strewn everywhere. Even the shores and waters of the beach have been adorned with garbage. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Tharparkar[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="338"] Park[/caption] Following devolution, the provincial governments introduced food safety laws such as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Safety Authority Act 2014 and the Punjab Food Authority Act 2011 and established authorities like the K-P Food Safety Authority. However, one fails to see the impact of the legislation and establishment of the implementing bodies on ground. The K-P Food Safety Authority has been empowered with licensing of food business, serving improvement notices, prohibition orders and establishing food laboratories. Offences under the law include selling of food not in compliance with the law, unsafe food, false advertisement, false labelling and failure to comply with directions. Now the question is, How do we save our children from the substandard foods that they are being targeted with? I believe parents, schools management, private sector, media and civil society along with concerned government officials are required to play their due role to protect our children from such hazardous food items. Widespread awareness regarding the ill-effects of such food should be created among children themselves, parents, teachers and shopkeepers. Schools administration should supervise the kind of food that the canteens are providing. The private sector should play a role in ensuring the quality of these products and shed light upon the negative effects these items have on children’s health. They should also play a responsible role in preventing environmental hazards caused by their products by partnering with local governments and the media to run awareness and cleanliness campaigns. Above all, the government and respective food authorities should improve their inspection system. Furthermore, a complaint mechanism should also be established so the general public can approach them if they see any businesses promoting substandard junk food and drinks for children. The newly established local government must safeguard our children from such substandard foods. Parents should ensure that the food items being consumed by their children are of good quality and nutritional value, along with educate their children on healthy eating. All photos: Arshad Mahmood [poll id="492"]

Dear Mr Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, It has been reported that you are behind the move to remove some ministers in the Sindh cabinet and appoint new ones. Of course, this is nothing new, all over the world ministers are sacked and replaced if they do not perform satisfactorily. Usually what happens is that new and competent people are chosen to run the government. With all due respect, I, for one, feel that nothing will change by sacking some ministers and replacing them with others. The people of Sindh will continue to suffer due to the absolute lack of governance in the province. One reason for this is that practically all your ministers are from feudal backgrounds. They have no knowledge of the problems faced by the masses. I doubt if you and your ministers read newspapers. If you did, you would know that the streets of the cities and towns of Sindh are filled with garbage, which is dumped there and not removed for months, badly affecting the health of the people. You don’t believe what I say? Please take a 10 minute walk towards the sea from Bilawal House, Karachi and see for yourself the huge piles of garbage near the sea shore. You would read that the common man does not get clean water to drink. You would learn about the deaths of children in Thar because most of the hospitals in the province have no nurses or doctors or even essential medicines. You would learn about the plight of our Sindhi sugarcane farmers at the hand of your party members. You and your cronies, if you make it a habit of reading newspapers, would understand what the common people have to go through when they have to deal with policemen, who have been hired, not on the basis of merit, but because they have connections with those who work for your ministers, or because they have paid good money to get appointed and posted in the cities of the province, where they indulge in extortion and looting the people. With Rs 70 billion being spent every year on improving the police department, the people have a right to expect improvement in the law and order situation, but instead, they are robbed with impunity, often by the police themselves. In the newspapers you will also read that there is gross corruption and mismanagement in Sindh. Of course, you and your ministers would react and say that it is a conspiracy to defame your government – that everything is hunky dory and the people of Sindh are very satisfied with the way the province is being run. But if you want to know the difference between Sindh and Punjab, please drive a few kilometres into Punjab from its border with Sindh. You will see that the quality of roads in Punjab is of international standards, while the roads of Sindh are full of so many potholes that they cannot be called roads. Do you need more evidence of mis-governance and corruption? The schools of the province are empty and useless, except for the “ghost” teachers and employees who turn up regularly on pay day every month to collect wages, wages that they don’t deserve. Wouldn’t that make you wonder what happens to the education budget (Rs 150 billion) every year? I doubt it. And do you know what needs to be done if you want your party to become popular again? Not much. Just do what the government in Punjab does: make sure that the budget money is not pocketed by vested interests, but spent on the masses. Do what Imran Khan has just announced: instead of giving the province’s funds to ministers and assembly members, give the money to the local bodies, which are in direct contact with the masses. That way, most of the money will be spent on the welfare of the people and not looted or siphoned away into private bank accounts. Appoint people (especially the police) only on the basis of merit, and not those who are recommended by your ministers or advisers. I may be wrong, but I don’t think you will do it (or will be allowed to do it). So, no, Mr BBZ, sacking and replacing ministers is not going to change anything!

Two teenagers were riding a donkey cart full of garbage they had collected from houses towards a garbage dump located behind a ground known as Eid Gah in Karachi’s Gulberg Town. After reaching the spot, the boys emptied the garbage and the horrid smell forces passers-by’s to cover their noses.  Every month, representatives from a local governing body collect Rs100 from each house in Gulberg Town for the facilitation of garbage disposal. However, the waste material is neither disposed of nor is it recycled properly. Ultimately, no one knows where the money that had been collected from the pockets of the citizens is spent. This is a common problem. Apart from a few affluent localities in Karachi, hordes of garbage are piled up across various neighbourhoods in the city and it has become apparent that the government has failed to devise an effective long-term strategy for Karachi’s garbage conundrum. In an attempt to tackle this very problem, the Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi, a member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), launched the ‘Let’s Clean Karachi’ drive, in collaboration with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P). The drive officially kicked off on Sunday at the Karachi Port Trust Office (KPT) and will reportedly be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, storm water drains will be cleaned while the second phase will comprise of clearing garbage from the streets and roads. https://twitter.com/AliHZaidiPTI/status/1158281209128071168 https://twitter.com/pid_gov/status/1158685177926828032 https://twitter.com/LetsCleanKhi/status/1159021785708466176 Zaidi has requested citizens for donations, claiming that over Rs1.75 billion is required in order to execute the first phase of the drive. According to him, the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) will manage the campaign voluntarily because it has the necessary machinery and expertise, while 5,000 volunteers will help carry out the campaign. Now, in theory, the idea sounds compelling, and we even praise the initiative. However, two years ago a similar initiative called the ‘Clean Karachi Campaign’ was launched by the Karachi Metropolitan Cooperation (KMC). But like most half-baked solutions to Karachi’s deeply rooted garbage problem, the campaign seems to have borne little fruit. Similarly, if the‘Let’s Clean Karachi’ campaign fails to put into place effective polices, then it too will soon become redundant. https://twitter.com/wasimakramlive/status/1157931869914181632 https://twitter.com/falamb3/status/1159004743433445376 https://twitter.com/iamhumayunsaeed/status/1158436989290590208 Although Karachi has many stakeholders, including the federal government, the provincial government and the local government, it appears that no one actually wishes to take ownership of the problems that riddle Karachi. Undoubtedly, fingers are pointed at the residents of Karachi for treating the roads as their personal trash cans. The local government blames the provincial government for not releasing the funds needed to initiate the cleaning process in Karachi while the Sindh government criticises the federal government for not providing them with the allocated funds. The tragedy is that the federal government ignores Karachi’s garbage problem even though the city provides the government with the highest amount of tax revenue. https://twitter.com/AliHZaidiPTI/status/1159061888162041857 But why do the masses have to bear the brunt of the government’s inefficiency? Why should we donate money to the government when we already pay taxes for this very purpose? In the 2019 budget, salaried persons under Rs50,000 have also been taxed and indirect taxes have been increased. If this money isn’t being spent on improving the welfare of citizens, then where is it going? This drive is reminiscent of former chief justice Saqib Nisar’s campaign for the construction of Diamer Bhasha and Mohammand Dam in which Pakistani nationals from across the globe actively contributed towards a collection of more than Rs10 billion. However, the expected cost of construction for the dam was $14 billion. Many citizens donated to the dam fund of their own accord while certain institutions such as Pakistan Railways was charging additional Rs10 per ticket for the cause. In this scenario, the same question arises: when the citizens pay taxes, why should they have to donate for projects which are the responsibility of the government? The initiators of the ‘Let’s Clean Karachi’ drive need to brief the public about their extended workable plan so that its future is not similar to the dam fund campaign. Right after announcing the campaign, the federal minister also demanded people living on encroachments to voluntarily vacate those places and that these individuals would be provided houses under the Pakistan Scheme residential project. But why would people leave their homes for a settlement whose ordinance is yet to be presented in the National Assembly and whose fate is still not decided? No one knows where this proposed scheme is located because it is currently in its planning phase. Cleanliness drives in a metropolitan city like Karachi could be successful on temporary basis; however, maintaining a standard of cleanliness is ultimately the responsibility of the government. The long term efficacy of this drive still remains to be seen. Clearing storm drains and collecting garbage will surely provide temporary relief, but it will not address the core of the problem. Unfortunately, a metropolitan like Karachi is severely lacking a detailed plan which attempts to solve the garbage problem, which will only worsen as the years go by. Using donations to provide temporary relief is of little use if there is no wide ranging policy.

Pakistan’s cities are ridiculously congested. They often feature a polluted water supply, over flowing garbage and toxic air pollution. As many environmentalists point out, they are gradually becoming unlivable, which is why many of us have welcomed the recent introduction of the Clean Green Pakistan Index. This index aims to encourage competition among Pakistan's cities on various indicators like access to clean drinking water, safe sanitation, effective solid waste management and tree plantation. The index was launched in Islamabad this week and Prime Minister Imran Khan gave the example of his home-town Lahore which, in his younger days, was a green city with pure tap water and clean air.

“Today you can’t breath in Lahore. The worsening air quality is threatening the lives of the elderly and the young. It is a silent killer and now, Lahore's pollution levels have reached those of Delhi, making it the second or third most polluted city in the world,” he stated.

He blamed the previous government for not thinking about the adverse impacts of uncurtailed de-forestation. He claimed that they had cut 70% of Lahore's green cover in the last 10 years to build roads, adding that his own government was committed to a clean and green Pakistan. Malik Amin Aslam, the Advisor to the PM on Climate Change. said that the new index will encourage competition between 19 cities of the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces on providing important services like waste collection and waste-water treatment. In an earlier meeting with environmentalists in Islamabad, Aslam explained how the Chinese government had obtained success with a similar competition amongst their growing cities,

“The introduction of quantifiable environment performance in China brought about noticeable change in their local municipalities.”

He stated that around 35 indicators had been included in the Pakistani index and the project was going to be implemented within the next six months with funding from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB). The private sector was also being encouraged to invest in waste-water treatment and solid waste management. The PTI government has already introduced an app which can be downloaded by local government officials and private citizens, with defined activities that will be awarded bronze, silver and gold in recognition of best practices. At the launch, Aslam also said that, as part of the initiative, students from schools and universities would be engaged. He said that the youth of the country should register on the app and the government would recognise and reward those who actively participate. The PTI government also plans to launch a Green Youth Movement very soon to further involve young people in making Pakistan green. Aside from waste management and the provision of clean water, the initial phase of the Clean Green Pakistan Index also calls for the participating cities, including Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Sahiwal, Multan and Bahawalpur, to compete to beautify the city, clean streets, as well as on the usability of parks, tree plantation, encompassing sanitation, and community participation. At the launch, the PTI government also announced that they would soon be introducing an efficient local bodies system to empower people at the grassroots level in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This will then enable the people to deal with garbage and sanitation issues themselves. However, Mome Saleem, the founder and executive director of the newly opened Institute of Urbanism, believes that these measures are insufficient as they would still not address the root of the problem. She is of the opinion,

“The cities with the highest levels of pollution are the ones which are the most densely populated. The lack of planned urbanisation has led to the concentration of population in a specific area. Concentration of population leads to concentration of pollution.”

She said that the congestion of the cities has occurred due to the lack of urban planning. People have flocked to large urban centers like Lahore in search of better jobs and schools. Lahore is a prime example of worsening air pollution, but other cities will soon follow suit, given our rapidly growing population. Saleem concluded that a proper urban policy is required if we are to save our cities from becoming unlivable. Saleem hopes that her new think tank can work with the government to come up with a sustainable urban policy based on solid research, noting that very few organisations are actually working on urban planning. She recently conducted a series of dialogues on “urban mobility” with a keynote speech by Dr Kamran Ahmad, a professor from NUST in Islamabad. He pointed out how congestion in our large cities had also been caused by the lack of proper public transportation systems and the easy access to car leasing/financing, which encouraged middle class families to purchase their own cars.

“Cars have become a necessity rather than a luxury,” he noted. He also added that there are “no proper school bus systems,” he stated.

Ahmad noted that the emergence of apps like Uber, Careem, Swvl and Airlift, which offer rides and car pooling opportunities were positive signs. He also praised the Metro buses introduced by the former government for providing cheap, efficient and respectable transportation although he criticised their focus on making signal free corridors which he said would only serve to choke up our roads. He called for further car pooling/sharing, discouraging individual car use by imposing high fee for parking, building cycling lanes, introducing flexible hours for work and improving public transportation. He also lauded the current government for introducing the new electric vehicle policy. He said,

“All over the world, electric vehicles are on their way. But in Pakistan, we need to make a proper plan for them so we don’t go the way of CNG cars.”

Environmentalists in Lahore are now calling upon the government and private schools to introduce school buses, given the menace of air pollution in the city and how car emissions are contributing to it. According to Attiya Noon, an activist from Lahore who works with WWF-Pakistan, Lahore has the highest rate of drop off and pick up cars per child in the world,

“We see an immediate drop in Air Quality Index (AQI) when schools are off, for example, on Saturdays when offices are open, but schools are off. There was a big jump in the AQI when school reopened after summer break.”

According to Dr Anees ur Rahman who heads the board of the Margalla Hills National Park,  there are no proper zoning regulations in Pakistan's cities. He would like to turn the villages inside Margalla Park into model villages with proper garbage disposal systems and have the entire Margalla Hills National Park closed off to traffic. Instead, he wants chairlifts and cable cars to be used to transport people to the top as the road through the park is clogged by thousands of vehicles trying to go up to Damane Koh. He also criticised Metro buses for their high expense – the metro system in Islamabad, he said, cost us a whopping Rs 52 billion when an alternate and under used railway line from Islamabad to Pindi was already available. Our development has certainly been road centric with the national annual budget plan for roads higher than that allocated to education, according to urban planning researcher Aniqa Arshad. She also stated that we are urbanising uncontrollably without an urban policy in place which has resulted in runaway urbanisation. Providing public transportation has become impossible as city settlements have spread very rapidly. Zalmi foundation's Shakeel Ramay made a very relevant observation and said that even though people are pushed to move into cities, we barely manage them or the resources in the city. He was of the opinion that developing our rural areas may be a much better choice.