Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed - PDMA

Controversial reform packages, at the behest of usurpers who engage ‘fly by
night’ consultants with sole and premeditated task of perpetuation of their
regimes and wrapped up with their exit from the scene need no more comments.
There is no caveat that while changes in all man-made systems are necessary
and must be subjected to periodical review, to do so without creating a viable
alternate is most unwise. The moreso, as half baked attempts demoralized the
key service institutions; e.g. those established by inter-provincial consensus of
the founding fathers in December 1949 and sustained by successive
constitutions, including 1973 decimated within a few days of commencement of
the constitution and despite political accord of October 1972 on which it was
founded. Disruption of appropriate training to align the service memberships with
growing challenges of the time has taken its own toll. Like the bunds, not kept up
as per the Bund Manual, these validly made constitutional institutions suffered
erosion from the corroding influences of last 42 years of practices violative of
basic law, and without remorse.
77. Last but not the least, extensive encroachments in the flood plain was
flagged by most as one of the key factors responsible for obstructing the natural
river flows, especially during the flood seasons. The Commission noted enormity
of the dimensions of this practice during aerial view along the Indus River in two
provinces in the form of vast lush green farms planted and interspersed
throughout the reach of the Indus River bed where it flows on the ridge. During its
hearings, two more issues were highlighted: Allotments of lands to Sindh “haris”
in Katcha area by a previous administration and growth of housing settlements to
meet one of the most basic needs of shelter for growing population. (This is not
unique to the River plains; mushroom growth of ‘Katchi abadis’ in Islamabad’s
most developed urban centre and seat of Federal Government is not free from
that malady.) In the Commission’s view this is a symptom of policy failure, not a
disease: successive governments have failed to develop and execute town
planning as an integral and unavoidable instrument of state policy under which
need oriented provision had to be made for meeting the residential
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