With large scale migration of populations from the rural to urban areas, most of the Pakistani cities are bursting at their seems. As a consequence, now it is the turn of the inhabitants of cities to live in squalor and decay.

Except for the fortunate few living in small islands of excellence existing in mega-cities like Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, all others are destined to live in near mediaeval times- as far as municipal facilities are concerned. Actually, the built environment of our cities has simply disintegrated along with the environment.

The DHAs of Lahore and Karachi are thought by most to be seemingly different and probably shining examples of municipal diligence and what urban developments should be. As this assumption too is incorrect, I plan to deal with this specific issue in this article.

This is needed so as to correct many a wrong thesis being put forward and to also stop the runaway imagination of the naive who would want to have the whole country run as the DHAs.

In order to understand the situation, we need to know what exactly municipal duties are and the legislative Act supervising this specific activity of the local government.

As is evident, the Local Governments Ordinance (LGO) governs the running of municipal bodies besides a host of other similar set-ups. The Act clearly lays down the duties of the municipal bodies and also places for all to see the exact boundaries of such operations.

It concurrently propagates the procedures etc. of the rights and obligation of the population for whom these local bodies would be operating.

The LGO, 1979, which has thereafter been amended many times and remains applicable with a few differences in all the provinces, is a very detailed piece of legislation and lays down for us much what can come under the umbrella of local government.

Out of which all, this study discusses the duties of the Urban Local Council which means a town committee, a municipal committee, a municipal corporation or the rare and the biggest of all, the metropolitan corporation.

Besides the make-up of the urban local council, the Ordinance clearly spells out the compulsory functions too. These are very clear and do not leave any ambiguity for the administrators.

The foremost, strange it may sound, is the responsibility for sanitation- including the duty to require owners or occupiers of in-sanitary building and lands to clean the same and in case of a refusal, to arrange so at the risk and cost of the delinquents and then recover the expenditure as tax levied on the owner or the occupier under the Ordinance.

The third duty is for the removal, collection and disposal of refuse, fourth is the provision of latrines and urinals; fifth is the registration of births and deaths and sixth would come the adoption of measures to prevent infectious diseases and to restrain infection within it's local area.

Then it is the duty for provision of supply of wholesome water sufficient for public and private purposes- so much so that even all private sources of water supply within the local area of the urban local council would be subject to control, regulation and inspections.

Eighth of the duties is the provision of an adequate system of public drain and where all such drains shall be constructed, maintained, kept cleared and also emptied with due regard to the health and convenience of the public.

As a separate appendage to the eighth of the duties is the provision of drainage and sewerage schemes for commercial and industrial areas situated in the jurisdiction of the local councils.

Then comes the control over establishment of private markets, slaughter houses and the prohibition against keeping and maintaining cattle. The Ordinance then goes on and requires the urban local councils to make bylaws for provision for the detention, destruction or disposal otherwise of dangerous animals and also for the disposal of carcasses.

Thereafter, it is required to establish, maintain and manage such educational institutions as may be required by the government and also maintain other educational institutions as may be necessary for the promotion of education in it's local area and also for adoption of compulsory education.

Then it is public safety inclusive of fire fighting civil defence, flood fighting and the licensing of dangerous and offensive articles and trades. After the preceding duties, comes the activity of town planning, control over site-development schemes, the execution of buildings, over completion of the same, the erection and re-erection of buildings or alteration of buildings, the regulation of buildings, the provision and maintenance of public streets, provision of street lights, the duty of street watering, traffic control, control of public vehicles and lastly to take up arboriculture.

The Ordinance also lays down that the urban local council shall perform such social welfare and community development functions as may be transferred from other government departments or otherwise entrusted to it.

This in a way translates into the fact that the urban local council cannot encroach upon the turf of other departments or agencies and that it has to remain within the laid downs only.

The Ordinance then dilates upon the optional functions of the urban local councils which may, and if required by the government, undertake promotion of public health; establish, maintain or manage health and maternity centres, hospitals and dispensaries, arrange for medical aid and relief and medical education, check environmental pollution, establish bathing and washing places, dhobighats, proclaim public water courses and provide for licensing of public ferries (after approval of the government).

The urban local council may also with the previous sanction of the government exercise fishing rights in public water courses. Then comes the optional duties of laying out gardens, maintenance of open space, enforcement of forest plans and for the determination of pests of trees and plants and destruction of the same.

Thereafter in the last of the articles of the very elaborate Ordinance is the mention of culture, fairs and shows and this all too completely for the public. The recent press report about CDA's staging of a special opera show for the elite at the Islamabad Club is thus an aberration and a deviation from the duties.

It all can just be a PR gimmick and nothing else. The Lahore High Court too, a few days ago, ruled that the local government ordinance did not confer the urban local councils or their nazims the power to allow carnivals and other recreation events. And the last of the articles talks about the commercial schemes and that the urban local councils may promote, administrate, execute and implement schemes for under taking any commercial or business enterprise.

This last of the articles of the Ordinance seems to be misused by the urban local councils and thus instead of taking care of their duties, these are after non-core activities.

Coming to the DHA phenomenon, we see that it is not anything unusual or special or a revolution as some would have us believe. DHA's are a total deviation from the original goal of provision of housing for the defence personal- now badly skewed in favour of those in-service managers and the army of estate agents fattening on the spoils created by unnecessary and criminally bloated prices of plots.

It is in fact an aberration and the cause of high real estate prices in Pakistan and an haven for the black money specially because of the easy transfer of plots etc.

Further dilating on the issue, we see that it is a real estate business clustered in special business parks akin to an EPZ or the small Industrial Estates developed by the provincial governments, but for the differential that the stakeholders i.e. the residents of this area are never allowed to manage the show and the sponsors have a strangle hold on the things with a clientele which is very strong and with great paying capacity.

As a consequence, the product viz. plots get financially ballooned many times over giving further impetus to the level of force driving the DHA business.

Due to various extraneous reasons, there remain an unprecedented sale and purchase activity in these areas leading to an influx of mammoth revenues for the management's. As such, all whatever is happening is a blatant misuse of the law allowing cooperative housing schemes to remain outside the ambit of the existing revenue system.

Actually, all this was allowed by the government to arrange for an inexpensive availability of housing for the people. A further reason for the seemingly good working of the DHAs is the unprecedented benefits being given to the management like allotment of plots to all.

We also see that these edifices get unprecedented support from the top most level- which is also abnormal as this does not form any of the core- activities of the Armed forces.

Probably, this support, in addition to the great revenues being garnered remains the foremost reason for the success, but it all is at a price as the DHAs and buying and selling of plots wastes a great amount of time of the officialdom for whom this development has predominately become a home.

Another factor that has given boost to this phenomenon is the role of real estate cartels which are engaged in manipulating the situation in a highly organized manner.

This time around some of the cartels can even boast of being backed by important personalities too. The DHAs and their continued extensions, unfortunately, also lead to stunted activity in other private undertakings and because of which this sector has not been successful the way it should have been.

Thus we can conclude that the DHAs is nowhere a municipal body and nor does its functions relate to any municipality. Actually, it remains a business venture and nothing else.

In order to further comprehend the situation, we would look into the AWT housing schemes and the net results. All the AWTs are mediocre at best and surely no better than other compatible developments.

As a corollary to this study, we see that there has never been a need for extension to the existing limits of the Cantonments but for the explicit requirements of the Armed forces- and any extension for the DHAs is surely unwarranted.

Here the recent de-notification at the Multan Cantonment whereby as much as 400 square Kms of rural area has been excluded from the existing boundaries is most telling, as ostensibly it has been done because provision of municipal facilities for this area was proving back breaking for the cantonment board at that garrison town.

Coming back to the subject matter, we see that the various urban local councils, instead of going by the book, are busy elsewhere and as a consequence the citizenry is forced to make do with mediocre facilities at the best.

Actually, the concerned ministry is duty bound to correct the wayward, otherwise no amount of aid from the WB or the ADB would ever be able to rehabilitate the degraded urban areas of the Country.

Here ADB Country Director Marshub Ali Shah is on record having said that the whole system was breaking apart in cities and that the infra- structures there was in a real bad shape which needed to be urgently restored.

Though this is indeed a rude awakening for us, but the real work of correction would only start when the urban local councils wake up to their core responsibilities and leave entertainment, recreation and development of resorts to the private sector which has it's own special dynamics to deal with such requirements.