Karachi Drowns, Again: Why PPP Keeps Ignoring Pakistan’s Economic Heart

 

Every monsoon, Karachi becomes a city under water. Streets vanish into brown rivers, power goes out, and families wade through waist-high water just to reach work or school. This is not new. It has been happening for decades. Yet, despite ruling Sindh almost continuously since 2008, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has failed to provide the country’s biggest city—and its economic engine—with the basic infrastructure it desperately needs.

Why Has PPP Neglected Karachi?

1. Rural vs. Urban Power Base
PPP’s vote bank lies in rural Sindh. Karachi, with its diverse mix of ethnic and political loyalties, has rarely been a PPP stronghold. The political calculus is simple: invest where votes are secure, not necessarily where revenue comes from.

2. Tug-of-War in Governance
Karachi’s institutions—KMC, KDA, water boards—often clash with provincial authorities. Local governments, historically controlled by MQM or other rivals, are undermined by PPP. The result is confusion, duplication, and paralysis.

3. Corruption and Patronage
Development funds often disappear into patronage networks. Contracts go to loyalists instead of competent firms. Projects stall halfway, leaving half-built drains and incomplete sewage lines.

4. Short-Term Thinking
Stormwater drains, waste management, and urban planning don’t make for glamorous ribbon-cutting ceremonies. PPP has preferred short-term “visible” projects over long-term infrastructure investments.

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The Consequences of Neglect

1. Billions Lost Every Year
Karachi generates nearly 50–60% of Pakistan’s federal revenue. Every flood halts factories, delays exports, and stalls transport. A single day of disruption costs billions.

2. Health Emergencies
Floodwaters breed disease. Dengue, malaria, and gastroenteritis spike after every rain, overwhelming already stretched hospitals.

3. Urban Flight
Those who can afford to leave—do. Families shift to Lahore, Islamabad, or even abroad. Karachi loses talent, brainpower, and taxpayers.

4. Deepening Rural–Urban Divide
Residents feel exploited: Karachi’s revenue is drained, but its streets remain broken. This fuels resentment, strengthening the divide between rural Sindh and the city.

5. Erosion of PPP’s National Image
Each rainstorm exposes PPP’s governance gap. Instead of being seen as a national party, it is increasingly viewed as a rural patronage machine uninterested in urban survival.

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A Political Choice, Not a Natural Disaster

Karachi’s collapse each monsoon is not inevitable. It is the product of decades of deliberate neglect. The city doesn’t just flood with rainwater—it floods with the consequences of political apathy.

The Qur’an says: “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely” (5:32). Yet here, lives are routinely risked for political convenience.

Until the PPP—or any future government—treats Karachi not as an afterthought but as the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, the city will keep drowning. And with it, so will the country’s future.

Pakistan’s Floods and the Business of Selling Riverbeds

Assalam-o-Alaikum. My name is Umar Bhatt.

Have you ever thought of buying a plot inside a river? It sounds like a joke. Yet in Pakistan, it is real. Advertisements have appeared in newspapers offering land on riverbeds. This is not clever marketing. It is fraud against nature itself, and when nature is betrayed, it has its own way of taking revenge. This year’s floods have brought the issue back to life.

A Housing Society on the Ravi

When the Ravi River swelled, videos surfaced of Park View Society in Lahore. Its outer wall stands against the riverbank. No country in the world allows such reckless construction. The society belongs to politician Abdul Aleem Khan, who also owns SAMAA News. The project is formally called Ravi River Edge Society, Phase Two.

Aleem Khan’s political career has spanned the Q League, PTI, and now Istehkam-e-Pakistan. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan was accused of treating him and Jahangir Tareen as “ATM machines.” In Pakistan’s politics, sponsors fund leaders and are rewarded with freedom for both legal and illegal ventures. The Khokhar brothers in Lahore are accused of doing the same for the Sharif family.

The question is direct: was Ravi land given illegally to Aleem Khan? PTI says Imran Khan refused, which is why Aleem Khan broke away. Imran Khan himself admitted in a podcast that Aleem Khan wanted 300 acres inside the Ravi riverbed legalized. How can riverbed land belong to anyone? The only answer is corruption.

Reports in Bol News revealed Park View Society had occupied 8,000 kanals of government land and sold it. Aleem Khan even claims ownership of 3,000 acres, supposedly bought from a third party. How could a third party own river land? The pattern is familiar: seizure, collusion, and silence.

When Floods Become Political

Like every crisis in Pakistan, floods turn into political fights. After the Ravi floods, PML-N accused Imran Khan’s failed project of causing the damage. PTI countered that if Ravi City under RUDA had been completed, floods would have been prevented. The plan promised a 46 km lake, three barrages, an urban forest, and six treatment plants. Tweets even claimed it could handle 600,000 cusecs of water. Yet in August, just 91,000 cusecs at Shahdara was labelled “high flood.”

Meanwhile, dozens of housing societies spread along the Ravi’s banks. Al Rehman Garden, New Metro City, Kingdom Valley, Iqbal Garden, Al-Karam Garden, and Greenland Residency are among them. Many built illegally on government land. Officials took their share and life carried on until the river rose.

From Rawalpindi to Karachi: The Same Story

Rawalpindi’s floods showed the same truth. Bahria Town Phase 8 and Faisal Hills were accused of encroaching on the Sawan River, reclaiming its bed, and selling plots without NOCs. Cases were filed, but no one believes this happened without the help of the Rawalpindi Development Authority. When rivers are stolen, floods will follow. Blaming climate change is a convenient excuse.

In Karachi, Bahria Town took over land from the Malir, Langerji, and Tharai rivers, diverting natural flows. Villagers now live with routine flooding. Even Bahria Town itself suffered damage during heavy rains in 2022.

And it is not only rivers. Even Karachi’s main sewage drains have been occupied. Gujjar Nala, Orangi Nala, and Mehmoodabad Nala were filled with illegal buildings. These were approved with the help of local authorities. A Supreme Court-ordered clean-up in 2020–21 destroyed thousands of illegal structures. But after the government changed, the mafias returned with political protection. In the recent rains, Karachi’s streets turned to rivers. Cars drowned. Families were stranded for hours.

Playing Games with Nature

Around the world, airports are built far from cities. In Pakistan, housing schemes advertise being “two minutes from the airport” as a selling point. Mountains are cut, rivers are filled, and lakes are squeezed to make hotels. In Swat’s Bahrain and Kalam, hotels rise in the middle of rivers and lakes. Some have already collapsed.

No country allows riverbeds or lakes to be private property. Here, such construction is illegal but thrives with official collusion. When disaster comes, the same corrupt officers arrive to demolish what they earlier approved. Politicians, land mafias, and bureaucrats share the profits. Floods keep coming. The poor keep losing their homes.

A Question Without an Answer

People often ask me for solutions. But what can I suggest? Should I call on government bodies, when they themselves enable the encroachment? Should I hold politicians responsible, when land mafias finance their rallies, elections, even weddings? Even if a new authority is created, it will likely be filled with the same corrupt men.

The truth is bitter. The hearts of those in power are full of greed, not mercy. That is why I can only pray for God’s compassion. Because these men have none.

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📹 Source: Umer Butt, YouTube – Watch the original video here

Mumbai and Karachi: Why They Drown Every Monsoon

 

Each year the story is the same. The skies open, the streets vanish under water, and officials act as if it were a surprise. Mumbai and Karachi, two vast cities facing the Arabian Sea, flood almost in unison. The similarity is not coincidence. It is history, geography, and governance repeating itself.

The Geography of Risk

Both cities rest on low coastal land. When heavy rain meets a high tide, drains fail to release the water. The sea blocks the flow, and entire neighbourhoods turn into shallow lakes. What should have drained naturally is pushed back into the streets.

Old Bones Beneath New Cities

Mumbai still runs on drains laid out by the British in the nineteenth century. They were built for a town, not a metropolis. Karachi’s nullahs were carved to carry seasonal streams, not the torrents of a city of twenty million. Populations grew, concrete spread, but the drainage did not keep pace.

Encroachment and Neglect

Wetlands and mangroves once soaked up the rain. They are now built over. The Mithi River in Mumbai has narrowed into a foul canal pressed between slums and flyovers. In Karachi, Gujjar Nullah and Orangi Nullah are clogged by settlements and choked with waste. Authorities promise pre-monsoon cleaning every year, yet when the first storm arrives, manholes are blocked and water rises within minutes.

Climate Turns Fierce

Rainfall has grown more intense. What once fell gently over weeks now crashes down in hours. Neither city can withstand such pressure. Rains that were once welcomed for relief now bring fear of another deluge.

Inefficiency and Corruption

Here the resemblance deepens. In Mumbai, the municipal corporation, the state, and national agencies all hold pieces of the puzzle. In Karachi, Sindh government, city authorities, cantonment boards, and the federal administration share power. The result is paralysis.

Funds are announced, projects are awarded, but much of the money vanishes before it reaches the drains. Contracts go to friends and allies. Housing schemes rise on floodplains because they are profitable. The water then comes and proves the betrayal.

Who Suffers

The poor bear the cost. In both cities, the rich withdraw into high-rises or gated colonies. It is the bus commuter, the motorcyclist, the street vendor who wades waist-deep. Until leaders themselves face the water, change will remain a promise.

The Cycle

Floods are not acts of God alone. They are failures of government. Yet each year the cycle continues: the rain, the outrage, the excuses, and the silence. Then the next monsoon arrives, and the story begins again.

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Closing thought: Mumbai and Karachi show the same hard truth. Floods are not only about the skies. They are about what governments refuse to fix.