Mian Anjum Nisar, President, Sheikh Sultan Rehman and Khurram Ejaz, Vice Presidents of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) have expressed their serious concern, sorrow and grief over the loss of lives and damage to property caused by torrential rains in Karachi.
They regretted that heavy rains have inundated the entire city and severely damaged the roads and exposed the already-weak infrastructure. Rain water has entered factories, warehouses, people’s homes and caused heavy losses to the business community at large. Most parts of the city remain without electricity. Generators are not working either as people have run out of petrol because of shortage of petrol due to which the drainage of water from factories, warehouse and other work places could not be made possible. Life has come to a standstill and severely disrupted.
The city which contributes more than 60% of the revenues and is the hub of Pakistan’s economy is left at the mercy of nature and relief measures are highly inadequate, they added.
They reminded the government that due to lockdown resulting from COVID-19, the economy of the metropolis had already suffered extensively and still not able to recover completely while the torrential rain further aggravated the situation. They further said, no precautionary measures were taken before the rain which was forecasted, well in advance.
They said it is an extra ordinary situation and requires extra ordinary relief measures. They termed this situation very alarming and asked the Federal and Sindh governments to immediately and urgently take rehabilitation measures to restore normalcy in Karachi. They also appealed for developing comprensive plans to resolve the long-standing issues of Karachi like waste management, water and sewerage, mass transit system, infrastructure and master plan.