I am running into the 39th year of my age. During all these years, I have been able to visit and see more than 25 big and small cities of the country such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Shikarpur, Neushehro Feroz, Khairpur, Ghotki, Tando Muhammad Khan, Jacobabad, Jamshoro, and others. I found one thing common in all these big and small cities i.e they all were unclean and short of natural beauty (except for Islamabad). Encroachments, spitting of pan, throwing of garbage were among the common features on all the roads of these cities.
It has often been seen that the big cities of most of the countries of the world remain clean and attractive. Both local and foreign visitors prefer to visit major cities of various countries. But unfortunately, our big cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta have failed to attract both local and foreign tourists as far as the questions of cleanliness and natural beauty in these cities is concerned.  Beautification of our cities has never remained to be the high priority by all the successive governments of our country. And this is the reason that we have not been able to produce beautiful cities with full of natural greenery and cleanliness. I visited four cities of Malaysia i.e Kalalumpur, Putrajaya (federal administrative capital of Malaysia),Cyberjaya (known as Silicon valley of Malaysia) and Melaka(very ancient city of Malaysia) in the last December. Honestly saying, my eyes saw all that which my mind did not accept easily for at least two weeks even after my return to Pakistan.
All the four cities were clean to the core and equipped with natural beauty. There were no encroachments and filthy material to be seen on the roads. Both light and heavy traffic were running with complete discipline. So much so, in my two week’s stay in Malaysia, I hardly heard a vehicle horn, unlike here where we are used to honking the car horn. The important thing about all these visited cities was that they were constructed under well defined town planning mechanism where every effort has been made to protect the interests of both the residents and the businessmen.
I pray and hope that at least our major cities start attracting both local and foreign tourists. This can be possible when we all will make serious and sincere efforts towards making our cities beautiful and clean.
ABDUL SAMAD SAMO,
Karachi, July 26.