KARACHI - The lack of planning while developing new cities or expanding the current ones has had a devastating impact on ecology and environment, said University of Karachi (KU) VC, Professor Dr Muhammad Qaiser on Wednesday.

Addressing the two-day first South Asian Regional SURE Conference, organised by Department of Geography, KU at Jinnah Auditorium, he said, “It becomes almost impossible to reclaim the lost habitat once it gets disturbed or destroyed. The government must give importance to adequate urban planning and ecological preservation.”

He added that the country’s population was increasing at an alarming rate. “Pakistan’s population almost doubles in every 25 years, while population of its biggest city like Karachi is now around 200 million which was merely 1, 50,000 in 1947,” he explained.

He was of the view that it was the duty of lawmakers to legislate to ensure that the cities were planned properly, and, at the same time, environment was also conserved since it was one of the most pertinent global issues.

Professor Dr Salman Qureshi from Berlin University, while delivering the keynote address, said that the emotional state of people had a great significance in an urban atmosphere since they must be stress-free in order to play their role in the society.

“In Karachi, plants and trees are being cut for broadening the roads, which is highly dangerous for our environment,” he said, and added, “Political parties of Karachi have different priorities when it comes to development. One wants to focus on roads and the other one on parks.”

He said that Islamabad was the prime example of modern planned city. “Megacities of South Asia needed urban planning since their condition was not very good.  52 percent area of Mumbai consists of slums,” Qureshi informed.

Prof Dr Cristian Ioja from the University of Bucharest Romania, in his talk, said that after the fall of communism, Eastern Europe has experienced major changes in social and economic conditions as well as spatial planning.

“The transition from the centralized system to decentralized one produced significant changes, especially in the urban ecosystems,” he said, and added, “The increased involvement of public in the decision making process has favoured the occurrence of complex environmental conflicts which have complicated the administrative process.” Dr Salman Zubair, Assistant Professor at university’s Geography Department, while presenting his paper added that the ill- planned urban and transportation system of Karachi had created serious social, economic and ecological problems in the megacity.

“Karachi is the seventh largest megacity in the world, and is at 4th position in terms of fatalities resulting from road accidents. More than 3 million registered vehicles on road are contributing to the traffic problems,” he elaborated. According to his study, 33 percent of the road accidents in the city are caused by flawed road designs and 42 percent of the city’s population is quite vulnerable to road accidents, noise pollution and air pollution.

“The mass transit system is urgently required to make the urban transport system more sustainable and safe,” he proposed.