Bahria Town stays away from Rs 1bn JV with KMC for garbage lifting

KARACHI: With Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan (MQM-P) going through the worst-ever political crisis in the party’s history, a joint venture of worth Rs 1 billion between property tycoon Malik Riaz’s Bahria Town and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) seems nowhere near, Pakistan Today has learnt.

Interestingly, the insiders confided to Pakistan Today that Bahria Town administration was repeatedly contacted by the KMC and the respective district municipal administration to initiate the garbage lifting process in the metropolis but received no response from Bahria Town.

After Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar launched a campaign against the Sindh government on the issue of piles of garbage in the city, Malik Riaz had announced that Bahria Town would lift the garbage itself from the city. In this connection, Bahria Town and KMC had also signed a joint venture worth Rs 1 billion in mid of 2017, sources said.

Interestingly, the joint venture remained only on papers as even the initial paperwork could not be completed because of MQM-P’s internal differences and the poor performance of the city’s mayor.

Recently, the Farooq Sattar-led MQM-P had further divided into two factions namely MQM – PIB and MQM – Bahadurabad, affecting the cleanliness of the city.

Under the joint venture, the garbage lifting process was to be started from district central in July 2017 while some four committees comprising of officials of KMC and Bahria Town were supposed to supervise the garbage lifting process round the clock in two shifts. Moreover, a central control room was to be established in KMC headquarters.

According to sources, more than 1,670 locations were identified in all six districts of the city to lift an estimated 1.4 million tons of garbage, adding that Bahria Town was to lift the garbage, transfer it to landfill sites, fumigate the cleaned areas, colour footpaths, work on the rehabilitation of street lights, etc.

Sources said that Malik Riaz always wanted to please MQM in order to avoid the party’s resistance in the development of Bahria Town projects and had also announced the establishment of a university in Hyderabad named after MQM-London Chief Altaf Hussain but the plan was dropped following the federal government’s action against MQM-London and its chief over his anti-Pakistan statements.