Yet another monsoon season has passed us by, with the state at both the provincial and federal level failing to move towards adapting Karachi’s infrastructure to deal with bouts of sudden rain without completely flooding the city. Brief spells of rain in the last five days inundated the city’s roads, with the danger of electrocution a very real concern throughout many of Karachi’s localities, with another two people electrocuted on Saturday, bringing the death toll from electrocution up to 9 in just two days.

The infrastructure being poorly designed and leading to traffic jams and flooded cars is one thing, but the fact that the extent of the poor quality of roads and sewage in Karachi has led to 9 deaths in only 2 days tells us that the government’s failure to provide the city with basic amenities has now become deadly for Karachi’s residents.

Amidst all of this, both the federal and provincial governments cannot seem to find common ground and continue to blame one another for the mess that is Karachi currently. The PPP government in Sindh has been engaged in a constant struggle with the federal government of PTI in the centre – and their coalition partners, the MQM – with a relentless blame game between the two, over who is to blame and which level of government will go about solving Karachi’s exigent problems.

With the current acrimony on display, it is positive that President Arif Alvi has called for the provincial and federal governments to work together to solve Karachi’s problems, but this is only possible if various political parties stop the consistent mudslinging they have been engaged in with one another.

As of right now, however, this almost seems impossible, as various political factions seem content with watching Karachi in shambles as long as they get to use its state for political point-scoring. Karachi is not the only metropolis in the world that features frequent rainfall, many cities actually have consistent rainfall all throughout the year without any incidents of flooding or deaths. The problem is not as impossible to solve as it is made out to be.

Sanitation, health and safety are services commonly available to residents of the city, which is why so many people move to live in urban areas. Currently, the 15 million inhabitants of Karachi are not receiving the top-notch infrastructural facilities they are entitled to, as the largest and most productive city in Pakistan. One can only hope that the recent deaths and the abject failure of Karachi’s roads to withstand the rainfall wake the provincial and federal governments up, enough to start working on the problem before more people lose their lives.