Every year, the EIU provides 140 cities scores out of 100 on a range of consideration for example living standards, crime, transport infrastructure, way to education and healthcare, in addition to political and economic stability. In the current year, Karachi has been classified 136th on the list. It is the fifth least liveable city in the world. It is only administering to do better than Damascus in Syria, Lagos in Nigeria, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Tripoli in Libya. Other countries in the list of the 10 least liveable cities comprised Caracas in Venezuela, Algiers in Algeria, Douala in Cameroon, Harare in Zimbabwe and Port Moresby in PNG. Ranked on 136th position, Karachi’s overall rating out of 100, which EIU stated was perfect, was 40.9, its stability rating was 20, healthcare 45.8, culture and environment 38.7, education 66.7 and infrastructure 51.8. Karachi’s ranking has improved by one spot in comparison to 2018 when it was listed on the 137th position.
For the early time, the index noted the effects of climate change on substandard dipping, with Indian capital New Delhi and Egyptian capital Cairo dropping in the rankings to 118th and 125th place respectively due to bad air quality, unwanted average temperatures and insufficient water provision. Austrian capital Vienna maintained its ranking as the world’s most inhabitable city. Vienna once again came forefront of Australia’s Melbourne which had held the top ranking for seven years until losing it to Vienna in 2018.The top two were followed by Sydney, Osaka and Calgary. London and New York rank 48th and 58th respectively as they pursue to struggle under the feeling of the danger of crime and terrorism and congested infrastructure. Myanmar’s capital Yangon, Caracas and Lagos were the three lowest rated cities on the grading while Japan’s capital Tokyo was the top ranking city. The ranking, published on August 29, gazes at digital, infrastructure, health and personal security. Karachi was ranked 52nd in digital security, 59th in health security, 55th in infrastructure security and 58th in personal security.
New Delhi registered the biggest decline in Asia, Mumbai also fell two places since last year to rank 119th on the list topped by Vienna (Austria) for the second successive year. The EIU stated decline in Mumbai’s rank was mainly due to a downgrade in its culture score, while New Delhi has fallen in the index because of downgrades to its culture and environment score as well as fall in the stability score owing to rising crime rates.
Acting Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed regretted that Karachi has become the worst city in Pakistan. He made these observations while listening a suo motu case at the Supreme Court relating to the death of 10-year-old Amal Umer. The Sindh government does not even have a solution to any problem. Justice Ahmed responded that the state of the Sindh government was not doing well. Karachi has become the worst city in Pakistan. He said that in the past, the people of Karachi used to be able to go far from their houses to play, but now their children cannot even leave their houses. Justice Ahmed gave the instance of an incident where a car was stopped in a crowded bazaar and about Rs9 million were stolen. In Karachi vagabond are wandering free of charge. They were involved in major crimes and the police were unable to catch them. The acting chief justice said progress that the mega city had made was coming to an end. He said that officers just wanted to collect money and had left the people of the city on their own. Exertions had already been looming between the federal government and Sindh over the formation of a ‘strategic committee’ for the poorly managed city by the prime minister, with the province feeling that Islamabad was trespassing on its area. Federal Law Minister Farogh Naseem said that the centre may take over Karachi’s administrative affairs under Article 149 of the Constitution. There is no doubt that Karachi is in disorder. Its solid waste disposal, sewerage, public transport and traffic systems have almost failed. Crime is spread everywhere. It is true that this Karachi city always graded among the world’s least liveable cities. All three federal, provincial and local are responsible for this pathetic state of affairs. Some development and better service were offered during the Musharraf era, under the mayor ships of Niamatullah Khan and Mustafa Kamal. But since then, it has been largely decline, particularly after the PPP changed the Sindh local government law in 2013, taking away significant many powers of the local bodies. No doubt, Karachi needs large help; but the way to provide this should be to give more power to the local governments, with setup maintaining checks and balances from all sides. Only good governance can provide all parties do their job.