PAKISTAN
Latest skirmish in the long battle against urban
infrastructure boondoggles
After
a struggle of several years, Karachi NGOs, concerned professionals and
community organizations have joined forces to stop another ADB loan of
US$75 million and to replace a grandiose KWSB sewerage project with a
realistic one. Here’s
the condensed version of how they did it, drawn from conversations
with and reports by the groups who led the struggle, and in so doing
became the de facto designers of Karachi’s sewers.
Meanwhile, 42 Billion Rupees later:
Of the 350 million gallons of waste water Karachi produces
every day, only 30 million gallons are treated by the KWSB’s three
treatment plants (two built by foreign loans) which have the capacity
to treat 151 million gallons. All
the rest flows into the city’s 9 natural drainage nullahs, and out
into the sea - untreated. Foreign-financed
infrastructure projects may be bankrupting Pakistan, but for the
banks, the big construction companies and the high-flying consultants,
they are real money-spinners
1. First
weapon INFORMATION
Understanding the proposed project and the city's
ground realities
Back
in 1992, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board proposed a major
project to build main trunk sewers in Orangi, the sprawling township
of 1.2 million people, as part of it’s massive Greater Karachi
Sewerage Plan. When
OPP examined the project, which was to be financed by ADB, they were
in for a shock: the
proposed trunks weren’t designed to pick up the functioning sewers
already built by communities or by municipal councilors, all of which
drained into the natural drainage nullahs.
The KMC, ADB consultants and KWSB had planned for he area as if
this work didn’t exist. Instead
of laying trunk sewers along the natural drains, their plans called
for pumping sewage uphill, over great distance, to large
treatment plants. As a result, the whole settlement would have had to be dug up
to link with the proposed system.
It
was only through careful research, well-organized opposition and more
sensible counter-proposals that a 1.3 billion Rupee mega-booboo was
eventually scaled down to a more sensible 250 million Rupee plan to
clean out Orangi’s existing natural drains and convert them into
trunk sewers. And for this work, the city had funds - only a fraction of
the ADB loan was utilized.
This
led OPP into documenting existing sewers in the rest of Karachi.
Their surveys revealed that in 82% of the 79,426 lanes of the
city’s 136 katchi abadis (informal settlements where 60% of
Karachi’s population lives), people had invested billions of rupees
in building sewers. It
wasn’t always the best work, but a system was in place and it was
carrying most of the city’s sewage into Karachi’s nine natural
drainage nullahs. In
80% of the areas planned by the Karachi Development Authority,
as well, sewage was going into the nullahs.
If all this work were integrated into the infrastructure being
planned and implemented under KWSB, the projects would be a fraction
of their present costs and completed in a fraction of the time.
And the poor, instead of contractors and consultants, would be
the beneficiaries!
This
expensive and faulty planning persisted, however - ADB loans kept
coming, Sindh Province plunged further into debt and more KWSB sewage
projects were built. But
because they’re not picking up effluent from most of the city’s
existing sewers, new trunks run dry, treatment plants don’t receive
enough effluent, and even after borrowing Rs 42 billion, 80% of
Karachi’s sewage still flows untreated into the sea.
When
KWSB announced yet another major sewage project in Korangi, an area
with a population of 1.3 million, OPP recognized all the elements of
past mistakes: it didn’t follow the natural drains, it ignored sewer
systems which already exist in 80% of the area and unless all the
sewers were re-laid (costing additional billions of rupees) to link to
the new KWSB trunks, effluent from the area would never reach the
proposed treatment plant. The
project was to cost US$100 million - $75 million loaned from ADB and
$25 million raised locally. By
now, the OPP and its allies were on familiar ground, and knew what to
do. By documenting the
existing system in Korangi, developing an alternative plan and opening
up the issue with the communities, NGOs and civic groups, they
eventually convinced the provincial governor to cancel the loan.
2. Second
Weapon : A better plan
THE ALTERNATIVE PLAN
Sustainable, affordable means of disposing of
Karachi's sewage . . .
Once
the ADB loan for Korangi was finally cancelled, a joint committee of
local officials and senior engineers was set up to work out an
alternative proposal. Within
six months, the OPP-RTI had developed an alternative sewage disposal
plan for Korangi (as well as a proposal for a more realistic sewage
disposal system for the whole of Karachi).
The alternative plan is cost effective and corresponds to
ground realities: by
complimenting the existing system, using local resources and
indigenous technology rather than opting for foreign loans and costly
important equipment and materials, the cost of developing Korangi’s
sewers has been reduced to 20% of what KWSB proposed.
And it can be paid for by resources at hand in the Karachi
Municipal Corporation - there is no need for any external loans.
Since then, there has been a lot of interest from the
government, and the KMC has started upgrading the natural drains,
according to the OPP"s plan.
“The
whole nature of sewage planning changes once you accept what already
exists, and you try to work around that and upgrade that.”
Arif Hasan, OPP
At
the project level, these principals are being accepted, but at policy
level, heated debate continues about the “think big”
approach, which the provincial government is reluctant to let go.
Why? A
clear division in the decision-making process means that these
projects are developed at the provincial level, by sewage and water
supply agencies with notoriously little sense of ground realities.
The municipal governments who then get handed these projects to
manage are not always happy with what they’ve been given. Because they have contact with local people and local
realities (and have to balance their books), they tend to
accept these principals immediately.
More
lessons in sensible and non-sensible urban planning
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KWSB's Korangi Plan
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OPP's Alternative Plan
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Plan
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Superimposes an entirely new sewage system, ignoring existing sewer and
natural drainage systems
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Upgrades and expands the existing functional sewage systems after
carefully documenting these systems.
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Cost
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US$ 100 million
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US$ 20 million
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Financing
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ADB Loan for US $75 million, $25 million raised locally
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Can be done in 6 years using local funds
available with the KMC. No
loan is required.
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Extra costs
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All existing lane and secondary sewers will have to be dug up and
replaced to link with new system, costing million of dollars
above the project costs.
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None. By picking up flow
from existing sewers, the plan utilizes billions of rupees
investment in sewage infrastructure already made by communities
and the Karachi Municipality.
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Technology
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Foreign, expensive, inappropriate for Karachi’s fiscal and
technological realities, with high maintenance costs.
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Low-cost, easy-to-maintain indigenous technology uses gravity flow,
natural drainage and shallow sewers.
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Design
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By foreign consultants
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By local engineers and sewage specialists with deep understanding of
local realities, resources and limitations.
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Drainage
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Calls for heavy pumping stations to pump sewage uphill, across long
distances to centralized treatment plants, and faulty and
un-maintainable deep sewers.
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Upgrades existing natural drainage nullahs by converting them
into box culverts or shallow trunk sewers, so no realignments
are needed to pick up existing flows.
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Treatment
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Centralized in 3 or 4 large, expensive treatment plants which are not
on natural drainage nullahs.
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Decentralized to small, inexpensive treatment plants built at the ends
of natural drainage nullahs;
also explores eco-friendly alternative treatment
systems such as marine outfalls and lagoons.
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Contracting
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Built by foreign contractors, to “international” specifications, at
international rates (5
- 15 times local rates) with imported materials (even if
manufactured cheaper locally).
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Built by local contractors, municipal staff and local communities, at
local rates, making full use of local materials, local workers,
local expertise and indigenous innovations.
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3.
Third Weapon : Collective action by many groups . . .
It
took more than a good alternative plan to get the Korangi loan
canceled. A large network
of civil groups brought their separate expertise and collective clout
to battle against the big guns of external-loan-driven development and
shows that effectively advocating for development through indigenous
resources takes collective thinking and informed discussion between a
wide range of stake-holders.
Karachi’s
sewage disposal problem is a reality which cuts across sectors,
affecting the whole city’s health, environmental quality and
development. To
understand the issue, 22 public forums were organized by the Urban
Resource Center between 1998 and 2000, in which activists, NGOs,
researchers, journalists, government officials and community
organizations from Korangi and other areas learned about the
implications of the ADB-funded project and the alternative plan.
Press reports of these forums helped initiate wider debate on
the Korangi loan, and the city’s sewage problems.
Collaboration in Reforms for Efficient and Equitable
Development (CREED), a large alliance of prominent NGOs, community
groups and development organizations, was central in lobbying against
the ADB loan. During the
struggle, allies turned up in some unexpected quarters.
The provincial Department of Finance became a staunch supporter
of the OPP’s plan, not out of any particular convictions about
sewerage, but because KSWB’s failure to service earlier loans was
causing them accounting nightmares - they wanted to balance their
books!
So
great was ADB and federal government pressure that when the Governor
of Sindh was persuaded to cancel the loan in 1999, he was sacked and
the loan deadline was extended, sending the groups back into more
rounds of petitions and meetings.
Even after ADB canceled the loan in September ‘99 and
acknowledged the failure of previous KWSP projects, the Federal
government and ADB mission continued pressuring the Sindh Government
to rescind the decision and accept the loan.
To augment their case, a presentation was made by citizens
groups to the Pakistan’s Chief Executive, finance ministers and
local government. Finally in February 2000, the loan was canceled for
good and OPP‘s low-cost alternative
accepted.
An
ironic postscript : After all this, the Government of Sindh and the
World Bank announced in June 2000 a workshop entitled “Water and
Sewerage in Karachi: The
way forward”, to
which the OPP, URC and CREED were conspicuously not invited.
Everyone spelled a rat. But
thanks to an extremely effective grapevine, they showed up anyway,
having drafted in a preparatory consultation with 59 other groups a
policy paper on water and sanitation in the city.
Their clear message for the room-full of lap-top-bearing World
Bank consultants was “No thanks to more loans” and that the
“way forward” was through local resources and local
technology.
Update
 Pakistan
and DEBT posted June 3 2002
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Once
upon a time ... governments of developing countries had to live within
their means, and when planning infrastructure, had to find solutions
which matched their fiscal realities and drew on local expertise. Not any more!
Since
the 1970s, those governments have had a hard time resisting aggressive
offers of unlimited credit from the World Bank or ADB, or the
glamorous “think big” infrastructure schemes these
institutions promote. Although
it has led to innumerable ill-conceived and expensive mega-disasters
and threatens to bankrupt countries it claims to aid, the love affair
between poor governments and international finance shows little sign
of cooling.
Pakistan,
where a staggering 52% of the national budget goes into servicing
foreign loans, is a case in point.
Over the past 18 years, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board
has accumulated a debt of 46 Billion Rupees to finance a series of
large sewerage projects, which to date treat less than 12% of the
city’s sewage.
Because
KWSB hasn’t even begun paying back all that money, provincial
revenues badly needed for education and health are being increasingly
deflected into into servicing that debt.
For News on
Pakistan and World Bank Loans Protest June 14 2001
go HERE
More Information on Karachi
3 BOOKS
Understanding Karachi
by Arif Hasan
When many of us dip
into this book, we realize with some embarrassment how little we know
about the real workings of our own cities, outside of the particular
sector we work in. Arif
Hasan’s study of Karachi comes out of a lifetime watching the
sprawling city of Karachi grow and figuring out what forces and what
relationships determine the direction and nature of its social and
physical development.
While the book is specifically about one of Asia’s mega-cities,
it’s system of urban analysis offers a very clear framework for
shaping our inquiry into the workings of our own cities and for seeing
sanitation, transport, governance and urban history as all being
interconnected, and as windows for understanding today’s problems
and solutions to urban poverty
Housing
For the Poor
This book brings together eight reports on
Pakistan’s housing sector prepared by Arif Hasan over the last 14
years, all of which turn a critical eye on the government’s housing
policies and the informal sector and community responses to these
policies.
The book looks at several important and innovative housing initiatives
and places them within the social, economic and political realities of
Pakistan in general, and low-income groups in particular.
Transforming
Urban Settlements
This
book by S. Akbar Zaidi is the first in-depth, independent, critical
assessment of the Orangi Pilot Project’s Low-cost sanitation
program.
It looks at the values and organizational culture which
have shaped the organization, and the methodology of its work.
Copies
of all three books are available with ACHR or can be ordered directly
from the City Press publisher.
CITY
PRESS,
316 Madina City Mall,
Abdullah Haroon Road,
Saddar, Karachi 74400,
PAKISTAN
Tel
(92-21) 565-0623
E-mail:
aaj@digicom.net.pk
A
link to the
Urban Resource Centre
in Karachi
More information on Pakistan
on the ACHR site
Pakistan
and DEBT
The
Rationale Urban Resource Centre Karachi
A Visit URC Karachi
Arif Hasan
Urban Heroes Award Plus
A quick visit to
Orangi Pilot Project
OPP’s thick, informative quarterly reports have
been coming out for 21 years now.
From January, 2001, the OPP Report comes out in a new, more
reader-friendly format.
CONTACT
Perween
Rahman
Orangi
Pilot Project Research and Training Institute - OPP-RTI
ST-
4, Sector 5/A, Qasba
Colony, Manghopir Road, Karachi
75800,
PAKISTAN
Telephone
92 21 665-2297 / 665-8021
Fax (92 21)
666-5696
e-mail
opprti@digicom.net.pk
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