New mega housing schemes being developed in Karachi will further tax on limited civic services as they would get a lion’s share from the available water and electricity, warned experts.
They were speaking at a seminar on Pakistan’s contemporary economic issues organised by Business Administration Seminar Society of Mohammad Ali Jinnah University.
They noted that instead of supplying more power and water to Karachi citizens, it was being sold to private sector builders and developers for their under construction housing projects mostly at Superhighway. The electricity of a newly-constructed power unit of K-Electric and proposed additional water supply from K-4 project are likely to be diverted to six new under construction housing projects at Superhighway. Unluckily our citizens are unaware of these circumstances and local leadership is also not willing to protest against these injustices with public. Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Karachi University, Dr Safia Minhaj said that Pakistan was a lucky country which had 52 different kinds of minerals but it was our bad luck that these were not being properly utilised.
Assistant Professor Dr Noreen Mujahid said that basic economic problems of Pakistan were low productivity, physical capital, human and natural capital, low growth rate of GDP, mismanage economy, corruption, energy crisis, poor public service delivery and economic and social cost of terrorism around $40 billion. She said it was encouraging that the federal government was giving attention on three Es which are extremism, energy and economy.
Dean of Business Administration Department, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Prof Dr Shafiq Ur Rehman said it was a good news for them that president of the Republic of China would visit Pakistan next week. His country is a role model in economic development of modern world.
He said it was the right time to take full advantage of Chinese expertise who were also their best friends.