City Nazim Mustafa Kamal

Syed Mustafa Kamal born in Karachi on December 27, 1971 is the true representative of the working class of Pakistan. He became the Mayor of Karachi, largest city of Pakistan on October, 2005. It was his attitude and commitment to the citizens of Karachi that has made him such a dynamic leader. His belief that the city of Karachi can compete in the global arena with the leading developing cities of the world has made him a champion of undertaking projects, developments and finishing them in record time. The challenges to run a city like Karachi were very high and he had a tall order to fulfill. He successfully built a very good team around him and then very diligently divided the challenges faced by the citizens of Karachi into different teams. Where he felt his team lacked resources or needed extra support, he bought in consultants who had expertise in those areas to streamline the task. He introduced the concept of public/ private partnership in CDGK and quantified the projects with such new initiatives. His marvel of making the citizens of Karachi to be a part of Karachi was the recent launch of I Own Karachi, where the approach was very unique and away from the customary approaches ever witnessed. This new phenomenon of asking the citizens of Karachi to own it at any capacity has taken off. He asked the citizens for time and knowledge contribution towards the betterment of the city at any level .

From the basic needs of his citizens like water, drainage to the high tech infrastructure, he set his city up in the parameter of this global growth, he took on the challenges, avail the opportunities and worked thru them like a great sculptor.

This management of people and resources greatly contributes to the fact that he has done his MBA from University of Wales in UK and under graduate studies in Malaysia. He did his early education in Karachi. He applied his management skills in running the city in a very efficient way. The attributes can be easily identified in the style of execution and delegation, which the city had never experienced.

His roots being a common man of Karachi and belonging to a middle class family contributed a lot to his understanding of the basic problems faced by the citizens of Karachi. He took on the challenges to bring water and sewerage, which are the basic necessities of a city, as it had been a problem for decades in Karachi and delivered on it. He never distinguished between political lines and took on Karachi’s issues as one irrespective of anyone’s alliance with different political party. He relates to people very well and has tried his level best to satisfy the needs of every citizen of Karachi.

Before becoming the mayor, he was the IT Minister for Sindh for the period from 2003 to 2005. His involvement in the IT field was just as exciting, it is said that when Syed Mustafa Kamal became the IT Minister, he took on the ministry with a lot of enthusiasm and created so many new initiatives for the IT in Sindh that it grew tremendously. He travelled overseas from UAE, UK, Malaysia, USA and other destinations to promote his department and showed investors opportunity to come and invest in Sindh. The entire province saw a huge influx of investment from overseas with emerging new ideas and concept were materialized. He introduced the phenomena in transfer of BPO Industries which is doing very well in Karachi.

He initiated lot of Hi-tech programs and is in process to turn the entire city government into E Government. He has successfully laid the ground to build a 10000 seat call center which will also be the tallest building in Pakistan. He revolutionized the medical facilities by building state of the art Trauma Centre, meeting all international standards at Abbassi Shaheed Hospital, a new Fully Equipped Heart Care Center. Both these Institution cater to the poorest of the poor of Karachi as they also provide treatment free of cost. New health facilities were erected in different part of the city to help the poor and the needy.

In addition to the above, he has successfully launched the first of its kind Command and Control Center in Pakistan, at par with any international video surveillance facility for Karachi. It is situated in the main building of City District Government and equipped with latest surveillance technology. It is on Wimax technology with fiber optic backup. It is manned round the clock with 40 surveillance and technical staff monitoring each and every move on the Corridor I & II. It will help in smooth traffic flow and also assist to maintain Law & Order and substantially decline street crimes in the city, the recording facility also help the Law Enforcing Agencies to investigate after crime scene. He has built three bridges and three underpasses as signal free Corridor-I in the record making time of eight months starting from Karsaz and ends at SITE area, and the distance covered in one and half hours reduced to fifteen minutes. Corridor-II is another signal free passageway that is near to its completion, which will cut the distance and congestion of traffic quite dramatically. A remarkable achievement and for the first time in history of Karachi a Master plan- 2020 for the city has been prepared under his aegis. This was a very difficult task as the city was built first and then the master plan was designed. So coming up with all the strategies and planning for the future one had to keep the existence and work around it, yet don’t compromise the essence of what needs to be achieved. This way the city will grow according to a design and not by demand as it use to before without having proper drainage and water system in place. He has provided running water to small islands of Baba and Bhit that had no water for the past 300 years. This was made possible via water supply pipe under the sea by a Dubai Based Firm since no company in Pakistan had expertise to do so.

As such there was no proper system for a common citizen to lodge complaints on civic issues for last six decades, Keeping the frustration of the people, an unique idea was perceived by the Mayor of Karachi, resulting Citizen Complaint Information System (CCIS) came into being, to cater the need of the citizens on one window interface between the citizen and the devolved departments of the City District Government, facilitate the common citizen to lodge their complaints on 1339 on 24/7 basis and get their complaints resolved. Under the auspices of Mayor Karachi, the CCIS acquired higher service standard, satisfaction of long neglected citizens and ensure credibility and continuity of the current systems and processes, the International certification Agency (Lloyds. UK) has awarded ISO-9001 Certification. In order to meet disaster or emergency, he established City Ambulance & Rescue Emergency Services (CARES) with emergency call 1122 comprising on 20 ambulances at the first phase, fitted and equipped with latest technology. With all these accomplishments he kept a good balance of promoting his city.

He has bought in lot of investors from abroad. They have invested in small and big projects alike, ranging from small factories to desalination plant. He is the only mayor that had the honor of receiving dignitaries and diplomats from all over the world. He has the honor in receiving Congressmen and Congresswomen, Deputy Secretary of State Mr. Negroponte and Ambassador for Southeastern Asia Mr. Richard Boucher from the State Department, as well as high ranking officials from UK and other developing countries. He is the only Mayor of Pakistan that has been interviewed by CNN state department correspondent in Washington DC. He is well appreciated by the diplomatic circle and they all commend the work that has been done in Karachi under the aegis of Syed Mustafa Kamal. One of his favorite saying is “Seeing is believing”, truly underlines his belief that he delivers projects from conception to completion.

All in all, it is very difficult to put all his accomplishments in words as his ability to get the best in you, is truly the miracle he has created in which every City Government employees delivers his best. His dynamic personality and his charisma have motivated not only the city employees but the citizens of Karachi, who thrive to make their city just as vibrant as their Mayor. This attitude of the citizens of Karachi has never been witnessed before nor has anyone in the past bought this kind of drive and passion as Syed Mustafa Kamal to Karachi.

KARACHI 2010

Karachi is the largest city of Pakistan the Population estimate of Karachi is roughly 14 Million. 80% of them are Muslims, rest belong to all different religions majority among the Christians and Hindus. Karachi is the commercial capital of the country. It has representation of mostly all International Banks. Most of the International airlines fly here. All renowned airlines have offices in Karachi The city is vast in area about 2200 square kilometers. You can expect to see a large variety of modern and Colonial architecture. Though there are very few tall buildings in Karachi but the modern architecture is matured and highly sophisticated. There are many beautiful mosques, Mausoleums, Churches and Libraries here. Bazaars of this city are the most attractive. There are typical oriental style of bazaars with colors and narrow streets and you will find in Karachi the modern shopping centers offering a vast variety of goods of International standards and brands. One of the major tourist attraction is the busses and trucks of Karachi they are seen every where and present a whole art gallery of colors in them. The national museum of Pakistan is the most prestigious museums in Pakistan housing the artifacts from the old civilizations and the modern Pakistan movements relics.
A new master plan prepared by the Karachi city district government was presented for debate by the treasury benches in the City Council’s meeting on Friday, though the opposition benches urged a postponement of the discussion in the light of the upcoming elections.

It was the sixth development plan being submitted for the uplift of the mega city. Since 1923, five master plans have been formulated, but none of them have been implemented because of the lack of a legal cover.

Considering the development needs of the growing population and deficiencies of the present system, the CDGK has formulated the Karachi Strategic Development Plan (KSDP-2020) under the Tameer-i-Karachi Programme to set up a strategic framework and overall development direction for the future.

The council session was presided over by Naib Nazim and Convener Ms Nasreen Jalil while the EDO of the Master Plan Department Iftikhar Ali Kaimkhani was specially summoned to brief the house on the salient features of the new plan.

However, when the house opened its session, opposition leaders Saeed Ghani, Rafiq Ahmad and Shaikh Mehbubur Rehman on points of order urged the chair to extend the debate on this important document to an appropriate time because at present, other, more pressing public issues needed to be discussed because of the forthcoming elections.

They also called for sufficient time for members to study the details of the new plan as many of them could not get the copy of it. But treasury leaders Asif Siddiqui and Masood Mehmood did not agree with the contention of the opposition leaders, saying that the house should be allowed to debate the plan, which is very important and pertains to the overall development of the city.

Thereafter, the convener ruled out the reservations of the opposition leaders and directed Mr Kaimkhani to brief the house on the KSDP-2020.

In his brief presentation, Mr Kaimkhani said that the spatial coverage of the KSDP-2020 extended over the whole city district of Karachi, consisting of 18 administrative towns, six cantonments and the federal and provincial governments’ land-holding agencies, while the towns are territorially further subdivided into 178 union councils.

The master plan shows that the total area of the Karachi district is approximately 3,600sq km, of which about 1,300sq km are occupied by built-up area (within 15 internal towns), while land planning and control is fragmented into 20 federal, provincial and local agencies.

The EDO said that the multiplicity of ownership, overlapping functions and lack of coordination had hampered the formulation and implementation of development plans.

Keeping in view all these hindrances and obstacles, he said the CDGK has a vision of making Karachi a world class city and an attractive economic centre.

According to him, presentations of the plan were made to the president, the former prime minister, the provincial governor, the corps commander, the chief secretary, the city nazim, town nazims and other government agencies and international development partners.

He said the KSDP-2020 would have legal status under Section 40 of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001, adding that it would be mandatory for all the agencies and stakeholders (federal, provincial and local governments) in Karachi to follow the plan.



Regenerating the city


The salient features of the plan include a programme for local area regeneration to be undertaken area-by-area wherein local transport and infrastructure would be improved while efficient land use would be encouraged, including expansion through consolidation.

Under the plan additional urban centres will be promoted in existing built-up areas to help decentralize the existing economic activity and public services concentrated in the city centre. A new high-density trade and warehousing centre at the interchanges of the RCD Highway and the Northern Bypass and a new ICT centre in Bin Qasim in close proximity to the proposed Education City is also included in the plan. The plan consists of establishing a new government centre at the intersection of the Northern Bypass and the Super Highway.

It also proposes the development of the city’s entry points. For this purpose urban designs will be undertaken to develop the city’s three entry-exit points located at the Super Highway, National Highway and RCD Highway. This would include the development of transport, infrastructure, the removal of encroachments, construction, building machinery yards in the area, beautification and landscaping.

The plan also shows full utilization of developed industrial areas in the Bin Qasim industrial zone, Export Processing Zone, Surjani Town, Site, Textile City and the Korangi Industrial Area. Three more locations proposed in addition to the existing industrial areas would be developed when needed. Besides, cottage industries announced in the 1990s in Landhi, Baldia and Orangi will be developed and handed to the allottees and encroachments on these schemes will be removed immediately.


Financial district, diplomatic enclave


To effect the decentralization of Karachi’s financial district, which continues to grow, a number of sub-centres will be developed at new locations where the infrastructure and needed amenities would be adequately provided.

A proposal was made to establish a diplomatic enclave at an appropriate location such as the Old Race Course Ground. The concept, feasibility and possible sites shall be explored and identified in consultation with the relevant agencies.

The master plan also envisages the development of an Education City by bringing together institutions in education and health sectors on the site notified at Deh Chohar.

Other proposals are an additional site for the Karachi International Airport, allocation of space for graveyards, construction of new landfill sites, housing facilities, segregated mass transit system, park and ride facility, transit terminals and improving traffic management, roads and highways.

The plan also touches on the water supply and sewerage system, garbage transfer facilities besides the health sector by upgrading health facilities.

When the EDO wound up his briefing, Nazim UC-2 of Gadap Town Mujahid Jokio stood up and complained that the residents of Deh Chohar had not been taken into confidence while preparing the master plan, saying that “People are being uprooted from their land in the name of development”.

Mr Jokio questioned what kind of development this was when the houses of the poor were being demolished while they were being deprived of jobs. He complained that local people were not even being considered for petty jobs such as that of a peon.

In reply to Mr Jokio and others, the EDO said the members could give any positive suggestions which could be accommodated.

Later, the convener adjourned the session till Saturday.